If you were injured in a slip and fall accident at the property owned by a person or business, you have the right under North Carolina law to receive compensation for your injuries from the property owner and operator. Our experienced North Carolina slip and fall lawyers can help.
Our compassionate team helps clients with medical care, medical bills, property damage, and dealing with the stress of their physical recovery. We provide support, care, and concern in the aftermath of tragedies.
As former insurance defense attorneys, we know how to fight for every penny you deserve.
With more than 70 years of combined experience, our North Carolina injury lawyers for slips and falls deliver more.
“Slip and fall” refers to accidents that that involve slipping, tripping, or falling due to a hazard on someone’s private property, commercial property, or as the customer of a store or business. That includes injuries on properties like personal residences, restaurants, hotels, gyms, pools, or stores. The hazard could be a wet floor, an uneven step, or a missing tile. These cases are called “slip and fall” claims, and the law in North Carolina related to “slip and fall claims” can be challenging to win.
In order to prove a slip and fall case, you must be able to show that:
Slip and fall accidents can cause both minor and serious injuries bodily injuries. Some of the most common types of injuries our slip and fall attorneys in Raleigh help clients with are:
The personal injuries you suffered in your slip and fall accident may entitle you to monetary payments and compensation. Some of the most common types of damages recovered in the cases handled by our Raleigh slip and fall injury lawyers are:
Slip and fall accidents refer to accidental trip and falls that result from conditions on a property, including wet floors, unmarked tripping hazards, and improper flooring materials. Other than car accidents, slip and fall accidents are the most common personal injury case that our firm handles. Slip and fall accidents can occur anywhere: parking garages, grocery stores, church steps, entrance ramps, and office buildings, among others. Unfortunately, there is little reliable or correct information about slip and fall cases that is available to the public, which causes confusion about the slip and fall process and hurts injury victims’ chances for recovery. Here’s what our team of Raleigh slip and fall lawyers believe you should know:
Under North Carolina law, property owners (or tenants) have a duty to maintain their property in a reasonably safe condition for individuals who come on the property. But there are different duties and responsibilities to keep guests (known as invitees or licensees) safe vs. a trespasser.
INVITEE (A TYPE OF GUEST)
An invitee is a person who is invited onto the property for the benefit of the owner or occupier, such as a customer at a store. A property owner must use reasonable care to discovery and fix any dangerous conditions on the property that could hurt an invitee. For example, if a store owner knows about a wet floor and does not put up a warning sign or clean up the spill, they may be liable for injuries sustained by a customer who slips and falls on the wet floor.
LICENSEE (A TYPE OF GUEST)
A licensee is a person who is allowed to be on the property for their own benefit, such as a social guest. A property owner must use reasonable care to discovery and fix any dangerous conditions on the property that could hurt an invitee.
TRESPASSER (ADULTS)
A trespasser is a person who enters the property without permission. A property owner does not have a duty to protect trespasser from harm.
TRESPASSER (CHILDREN)
In North Carolina, property owners or occupiers owe a duty of reasonable care to children who may be attracted to the property due to an attractive nuisance, such as a swimming pool or playground equipment. In these cases, the property owner or occupier must take reasonable steps to protect children from the hazard or to warn them of the danger.
The initial moments and days after your slip and fall accident are critical, not only for your well-being but for your chances for compensation as well. These are the most important steps to take after your injury accident:
A slip and fall case begins when you file legal documents called a “summons” and “complaint” in the appropriate North Carolina court, usually in the county where you live or where the accident occurred. The specific details are outlined in Rule 4 of the North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure. Filing a case is as simple as taking the summons and complaint to the court clerk of the court where you’re filing the case.
The clerk accepts the filing and returns your copies so that you can serve the defendant with their copy of the filing documents. “Serving” a defendant means providing them with a copy of your file-stamped summons and complaint in a very specific, formal way, which is explained in Rule 5 of the North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure. Your complaint must include all of the grounds to bring your case and all of your demands for compensation.
95% of slip and fall cases, according to government statistics, resolve before needing to go to trial. The vast majority of injury cases will settle before the trial date arrives (sometimes even before a lawsuit is filed), and others will settle in the middle of trial. The most common reasons cases go to trial are:
The more time spent in preparation and building the case, the more likely your case will reach an appropriate settlement. But there are a lot of variables, and if your case is in the small percentage that go to trial, a Raleigh slip and fall attorney can help prepare you for what to expect.
There’s no way to precisely value your claim, but an experienced slip and fall attorney may be able to give you an approximate value based on their experiences and prior results in other cases. The value of your claim includes your economic damages like costs for medical treatment, lost wages, future medical care, paying for help you need around the home, and physical therapy.
To approximate a total case value, you can add up your total economic damages and then multiply that figure by 1.5 or 2 (for moderate injuries) to account for pain and suffering, which will give you a rough range of what a jury might award might be or how an insurance company could value your claim. For serious injuries with significant permanent injury, you might multiply your total economic damages by 4 or 5 for those severe cases. For incidents that “shock the conscience,” like car accidents involving drunk drivers, we have seen victims awarded damages 10x or more of their economic damages. In a recent drunk driving case, our team of car accident attorneys in Raleigh negotiated a settlement for our clients that was 13x their medical bills.
Whether it’s true or not, you are likely going to be blamed for causing your accident or injuries, even if just partially. You might even believe that you are responsible for the accident. However, there is a big difference between what regular people think about fault and what the law says. For instance, you might think a man stepping into a clearly visible 23 ft x 3 ft open service pit at an auto repair shop that he’s frequented for years is to blame for his own injuries. But the $1,800,000 settlement our team of Raleigh slip and fall lawyers secured in that case in 2020 suggests otherwise.
North Carolina does follow the doctrine of contributory negligence, which could prevent you from recovering damages from your accident if a jury believes you are partially to blame. However, an experienced Raleigh slip and fall lawyer understands that defense and how to work around it.
A small of number of cases resolve very quickly before a lawsuit is even filed. It may take 3-4 months to obtain your medical bills and records and 1-2 weeks to negotiate with the claims adjuster. However, these cases are in the minority and are usually limited to very specific circumstances (like when liability is clear and the damages are so severe that they clearly are worth more than the limits of available insurance). Slip and fall cases in particular require extensive investigation, code research, and engineering analysis (for issues like lighting, stair heigh, friction coefficient, etc) to determine that cause of your accident.
In most other cases, litigation can last for a year or more. The more complicated or contested your case, the longer you can expect it to take. You do have some control over the length of your case because it’s up to you to accept or reject settlement offers.
There is limited amount of time you have to file a claim, also known as the statute of limitation. In North Carolina, for most slip and fall cases, you have 3 years from the accident or injury to bring a claim. For slip and fall accidents on property that resulted in death, you have 2 years from the date of the death. There is no wiggle room or do-overs when it comes to deadlines to file an injury on property claim, so it is in your best interest to get a Raleigh slip and fall attorney involved as early as possible after your accident.
Once you file the case, you serve the other side with a copy of the paperwork. Then you wait for them to file an Answer, which is just a legal document that admits or denies the allegations in your Complaint. At the time same, you have time to build your case by contacting witnesses, gathering medical evidence, and collecting evidence from the other party. This is known as “discovery.” At that time, you may be asked to give a “deposition,” which is sworn testimony under oath. An experienced slip and fall lawyer in Raleigh can help, guide, and prepare you through this process.
In North Carolina, it is mandatory for the parties to also participate in “mediation” before the case goes to trial. Mediation is simply a meeting (either via Zoom or in a conference room) that all of the parties are required to attend, along with a professional mediator, to see if the case can be settled and resolved. A representative of the insurance carrier who decides how much money the carrier will offer will also be present. A majority of cases resolve through mediation.
Hiring an experienced slip and fall lawyer can provide you with numerous benefits. Injury attorneys know how to conduct initial investigations and save important evidence (before it could be destroyed) that might be needed for your case. They are able to work with experts, law enforcement, and first responders to prove what happened in your accident. They can assist with getting you the appropriate medical care and treatment.
Good North Carolina slip and fall attorneys can also negotiate with the at-fault parties, their lawyers, and insurance adjusters to get you fair compensation for your injuries. But perhaps most importantly, a slip and fall lawyer can take the weight and burden of the legal aspects of your case off your shoulders so you to focus on your recovery.
In a North Carolina slip and fall lawsuit, the injured party (victim) files a formal demand for compensation called a Complaint. Once you file the case, you serve the other side with a copy of the paperwork. Then you wait for them to file an Answer, which is just a legal document that admits or denies the allegations in your Complaint. At the time same, you have time to build your case by contacting witnesses, gathering medical evidence, and collecting evidence from the other party. This is known as “discovery.” At that time, you may be asked to give a “deposition,” which is sworn testimony under oath. An experienced North Carolina slip and fall lawyer, like our team in Raleigh, NC, can help, guide, and prepare you through this process.
There is limited amount of time you have to file a claim, also known as a statute of limitation. In North Carolina, for most slip and fall cases, you have 3 years from the accident or injury to bring a claim. For slip and fall accidents that resulted in death, you have 2 years from the date of the death.
Determining the average settlement for a North Carolina slip and fall case is difficult because there are so many different types and severity of injuries. In North Carolina, a number of facts go into the value of a case. Those include:
However, cases may settle for more than the average when a good North Carolina slip and fall lawyer is on your side.
No, pain and suffering is different from economic damages like medical bills and lost wages. Pain and suffering relates to the hassle, anxiety, stress, actual pain, and trauma you suffered as a result of the injury. But you have a right to claim full compensation for your injuries, which means medical bills, other economic damages, permanent disability, AND pain and suffering. Pain and suffering is on top of and in addition to your economic damages, like medical bills.
There is no magic formula for determining what amount of pain and suffering is fair in your injury on property case. In general, pain and suffering is proportional to the injuries you suffered. If your injuries are severe and/or caused permanent disability, the more pain and suffering compensation would be fair to award in your case. In a case with severe injuries and lifelong suffering, you might be awarded pain and suffering that is 5x or more of your economic damages (medical bills, lost wages, etc). In minor injury cases, your pain and suffering may be slightly less or equal to the amount of your medical bills.
However, sometimes there is a disconnect between what is just and fair in your case vs. what an insurance company or at-fault party will actually pay. A good slip and fall lawyer has experience and even tools that can investigate recent judgments and settlements in your area to give you the best leverage in settlement negotiations so you can recover what is fair.
There are several defenses that property owners or property tenants may raise in a slip and fall case in North Carolina. Having these defenses available to them can make a property injury claim difficult to win, which is why we recommend hiring an experienced slip and fall lawyer to help.
CONTRIBUTORY NEGLIGENCE
One defense is contributory negligence, which means that the injured person’s own actions contributed to the injury. If the injured person was partially at fault for the injury, they may be barred from recovering damages or their damages may be reduced by the percentage of fault attributed to them.
Open and Obvious
Another defense is that the danger was open and obvious, which means that the injured person knew or should have seen the dangerous condition on the property before being injured. For example, if someone is injured slipping on a large puddle on the floor, they may be barred from recovering damages if they knew or should have seen the puddle on the ground if they exercised reasonable care. Wet floor cases are particularly challenging because of this defense.
ACT OF GOD
Finally, property owners or occupiers may argue that the injury was caused by an act of God or a third party, which means that the injury was caused by a natural disaster or the actions of someone other than the property owner or occupier. In these cases, the property owner or occupier may not be liable for the injury
Yes, you can file a slip and fall lawsuit without a lawyer. However, if you bring your case on your own, you’re subject to the same rules and standards as you would be if you had an injury attorney. You are required to follow the same formalities and rules when filing court documents. The rules of discovery, admission of evidence, and civil procedure will still apply to you in your case. If you make a mistake, there is a chance that you case will be dismissed or thrown out. While you can file a civil lawsuit without an attorney, your best chance to recover the maximum amount possible is working with an experienced slip and fall lawyer.
