If you fell on someone else's property, a NYC slip and fall lawyer can tell you whether the owner is responsible and what your case is worth. These are premises liability claims, and they are the most heavily defended injury cases in New York, because owners and their insurers know that most people wait too long and document too little.
Two things decide them, and both happen in the first days: whether you can identify what made you fall, and whether the property can produce a record of when the area was last checked. Korman Lynch Lustig & Sassower goes after that record immediately. Below are the questions injured people ask our slip and fall attorneys most.
Call us at (212) 732-4992 24/7 to arrange to speak with a personal injury lawyer about your case, or contact us through our website today.
You may have a case if a dangerous condition on property caused your fall and the party responsible for that property failed to clean it up, repair it, or warn you about it. That covers stores and supermarkets, restaurants, apartment buildings, offices, hotels, garages, and public buildings.
Falling is not the case. The condition is. Our slip and fall lawyers review the facts at no cost, and the sooner that happens the more of the proof still exists.
This is the single most common reason a slip and fall claim fails in New York, and almost nobody is warned about it. If you cannot identify what caused you to fall, the case is usually dismissed no matter how badly you were hurt.
Falls are disorienting, and people often get up embarrassed, leave, and only later realize how injured they are. By then the answer is gone. A person who says they think there may have been something wet is in a far weaker position than one who says there was a puddle of clear liquid about two feet wide beside the produce case, and who has a photograph of it.
So before you leave, look at the floor, at your clothing, and at your hands and shoes, and take a photograph. If you cannot do it yourself, ask someone with you to do it. That one step decides more of these cases than any legal argument.
Yes, in most cases, and there are three ways to establish it.
The owner created the condition, through mopping, waxing, a leak from its own equipment, or a repair done badly. The owner had actual notice, meaning someone told them or an employee saw it. Or the owner had constructive notice, meaning the condition existed long enough that a reasonable inspection would have found it.
There is a fourth route that matters in older buildings and busy stores. Where a problem keeps recurring, such as a ceiling that leaks every time it rains, a freezer case that always pools water, or an entrance that floods in every storm, that history can establish responsibility even without proof of how long the specific puddle you slipped on had been there.
In a store or a building, the defense to constructive notice is a schedule. The property says it inspects regularly, and that the spill must have appeared moments before you fell.
The answer is to make them prove it. Stores keep sweep sheets, porter logs, and inspection schedules, and managers testify about how often aisles are walked. What our slip and fall lawyers look for is the gap: a log with no entry for the hour before the fall, a porter assigned to two floors at once, a schedule that exists on paper and was not followed that day, or a business that keeps no record at all.
A property that cannot say when the area was last inspected has a serious problem, and that is why these records are requested early, before a file is tidied up.
Supermarkets and big box stores, restaurants and bars, apartment building lobbies, stairwells, and laundry rooms, office buildings, hotels, hospitals and medical offices, parking garages and lots, gyms, schools, and public buildings. Falls on a job site involve additional protections and are covered on our construction slip and fall page.
A business is not automatically responsible because floors get wet when it rains. New York does not require a store to keep an entrance perfectly dry during a storm.
What it does require is reasonable care, and that is where these cases are won: whether mats were put down and whether they were adequate, whether anyone was mopping and how often, whether warning cones were placed, whether the mat itself was buckled or worn, and whether the water had spread well beyond the entrance into an area where nobody would expect it. A store with a written wet weather procedure that nobody followed that day is in a difficult position.
Often more than one party. Depending on where you fell, a claim can run against the property owner, the managing agent, the business or commercial tenant that controlled its own space, a cleaning or janitorial contractor, a maintenance company, a snow removal contractor, and a public agency where the property is publicly owned.
Leases and service contracts decide who was responsible for what, which is why those documents are requested at the start rather than assumed.
Then the clock is dramatically shorter. A claim against the City, the Housing Authority, a school, or the transit system generally requires a formal notice of claim within about ninety days, with a shortened time to sue and a sworn hearing before a lawsuit is filed. Those rules are on our municipal liability page.
If you fell in a public building, treat that deadline as running now.
That is the argument, and it does not end a case. New York applies comparative fault, which reduces a recovery by your share of responsibility rather than barring the claim, so a jury finding that you could have been more careful lowers a number instead of eliminating it.
The related argument is that the condition was open and obvious. A visible hazard can still be unreasonably dangerous, and an owner is not excused from maintaining property because a danger could have been seen. What defeats both arguments is specific evidence: the lighting, what was in your line of sight, the crowd, what you were carrying, and how long the condition had been there.
With the property's own documents. Our slip and fall lawyers pursue the incident report and any internal investigation, cleaning and inspection logs for that day and the days around it, staffing schedules and assignments, maintenance and repair records, prior complaints and prior incidents at the same location, leases and contracts with cleaning and snow removal companies, weather records where water or ice is involved, and video.
Video is the priority. It can show how long a spill sat, whether employees walked past it, and what the property did afterward, and it is routinely overwritten within days or weeks. A preservation letter sent in week one is worth more than any argument made in year two.
Generally three years from the date of the fall against a private property owner, and two years in a death case. Where a public entity is responsible, a written notice of claim is generally due within about ninety days. Children have extended time.
The evidence clock is much shorter than any of those, which is the practical reason not to wait until treatment ends before calling.
No. Our slip and fall lawyers handle these cases on a contingency fee basis, which means there is no fee unless there is a recovery. The first consultation is free and carries no obligation.
Korman Lynch Lustig & Sassower carries the case so you can focus on getting better. Our slip and fall lawyers:
Our slip and fall lawyers prepare every case as if it will be tried, because insurers treat a documented fall very differently from one they expect to pick apart. A settlement on the right number is welcome. A settlement that shortchanges what the fall cost you is not one this firm accepts just because it comes early.
The spill was mopped within minutes and the video will not last the month. The consultation is free, and Korman Lynch Lustig & Sassower does not get paid unless you do.
Call us at (212) 732-4992 24/7 to arrange to speak with a personal injury lawyer about your case, or contact us through our website today.
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