Premises liability can be a vague or confusing term to those who aren’t familiar with it, but if you’ve ever injured yourself on someone else’s property, you may be more familiar with the concept than you realize. Premises liability is the area of personal injury concerned with injuries suffered because of negligent property ownership. This usually refers to injuries that could have been avoided if the owner of the property exercised reasonable precaution or forewarned others of potential dangers.
These injuries could occur at a residence, but they can also occur at construction sites or hotels and many places in between. As a guest, you have a right to assume that your safety will not be unknowingly jeopardized on another person’s property. As a property owner, you have a legal responsibility to facilitate their right to safety. This means that guests must be warned about dangerous property conditions such as broken stairs or elevators, or that the dangerous property conditions must be fixed before such a warning is not issued.
While many of these injuries refer to slipping and falling, tripping down a broken stair or on an icy patch on the ground, there are other, less common types of accidents that you may be surprised fall under the umbrella of premises liability. For example, if you are on the property of someone who has an aggressive dog, and you are not warned to beware of the dog, you could bring a claim against the property owner for not warning you if the dog bites or injures you.
For a larger list of issues that could result in premises liability claims, visit our webpage. If you need an attorney who is familiar with New York law, feel free to contact us for a free consultation. We can help you decide the best course of action moving forward.