It is a matter of general knowledge that if you suffer an injury on the property of another, including a business, if the person or business that controls the premises was negligent in permitting the existence of a hazardous condition that caused the injury then you may have a cause of action for negligence based in premises liability. That is the easy part. The more challenging part comes when you need to build your legal claim and present it effectively in settlement negotiations with an insurer or, if need be, in a New York court.
Laying out the facts of how you were injured is only the beginning of what you need to prove to win a premises liability claim. Beyond that you must show that the property owner was at fault for the hazardous conditions that caused the accident. That invokes inquiries related to whether the owner knew, or at least should have known about the hazard and whether a reasonable person in his or her shoes would have known about it. To do this, your personal injury attorney must be thoroughly grounded in all of the requisite elements to prove a negligence cause of action.
Proving negligence is usually something that does not occur in a vacuum. The property owner can be counted on to raise legal defenses, such as denying that he could have reasonably known about the existence of the dangerous condition or attempting to invoke New York’s comparative fault law to claim that you were at least partly at fault for your injury, and your attorney must not only be able to anticipate such defenses but also be prepared to counter them.
Understanding how to build a persuasive premises liability claim – and presenting the evidence in a way that will convince an insurer to settle or a jury to make a damages award – is what we at Braunfotel & Frendel do as an integral part of our practice. We match your specific facts to the requisite legal elements to assemble the strongest possible claim for you, and present that claim forcefully. If you were injured while on the property of another, we can help you to pursue it so that you can receive the compensation for those injuries that you deserve.
