Richmond Premises Liability Attorney
It doesn’t take much to cause serious injury—simply falling from a step or even your own standing height can cause broken bones, a significant spinal cord injury, or severe traumatic brain injury. If an unsafe condition, like a wet floor or a broken step, at a store or on someone else’s property caused you injuries, then the property owner may be liable. Virginia law makes it difficult to succeed on these types of claims, but Puglielli Injury Law has the experience and expertise to navigate you through the process with compassion and understanding.
What do you mean by “premises liability?”
Put in the simplest terms, premises liability is the legal description for injuries that occur on someone’s property (i.e., the “premises”). Property owners (and sometimes other parties) can be liable for those injuries. This is a broad category of legal cases that range from slipping and falling on a wet floor to a roof collapsing over your head.
While a potential case may seem straightforward to many victims, determining whether the property owner is liable is a challenging and complex question in Virginia. It depends on circumstances such as your legal status on the property, the nature of the hazard or danger, the property owner’s knowledge of the danger, and what warnings the property owner may have given. Then there are questions of whether the property owner has the ability to pay or what kind of insurance policies might be available to compensate you. Finally, obtaining evidence of any of these circumstances can be difficult because it can disappear quickly, and premises incidents typically aren’t documented as well as incidents like car accidents.
Why hire a Richmond premises liability lawyer?
A skilled and experienced premises liability lawyer can provide the expertise you need to prevail in this type of claim because of the numerous elements that you need to prove. Whether you’re in Richmond or somewhere else, if you’ve been injured on someone’s unsafe property, you can give us a call to discuss your potential case for free. You can also browse some helpful, in-depth FAQs and information below and see our general FAQs page too.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know if I have a premises liability injury claim?
Like with most other personal injury claims, such as car accidents, cycling accidents, or pedestrian accidents, there are three general criteria for a viable premises liability claim:
Liability. The property owner (in some cases, it may be someone else) must have been negligent in causing your injury on the property. This is usually the most challenging aspect to prove in a premises liability claim because whether the property owner was negligent or owed a duty to protect you can be a highly complex question to answer. And, in Virginia, we have a strict rule called “contributory negligence,” which means that if you’re partially at fault, even slightly, for causing your own injuries, then you can’t recover any money. For more information about whether the property owner owed you a duty, please see the next FAQ on this page.
Insurance or Assets. The existence of insurance or assets isn’t technically required for a cognizable premises liability injury claim in Virginia, but, practically speaking, it’s critical. If you were injured on someone’s property but they don’t have significant assets or an insurance policy, you may still have an injury claim, but that person or business may unlikely be able to compensate you no matter how badly you might have been injured.
Damages. You must have been physically injured by the property owner’s negligence. There’s more information on damages below, but some core categories of damages include pain and suffering, inconvenience, lost wages, loss of earning capacity, and medical bills.
What kinds of duties does a property owner owe me?
Generally, a property owner’s duties to you depend on the legal classification of your status on the property. In Virginia, there are three classifications:
Trespasser. A trespasser is someone who is on someone’s property without their permission or consent. Property owners owe no duty to keep their premises safe for you and, generally, don’t owe a duty to warn you of hazards or unsafe conditions. However, there is an exception for trespassing children in certain situations and a couple of other exceptions too.
Licensee. A licensee is someone who is on someone’s property with permission but for the guest’s own benefit. An example of a licensee is a social guest (like a guest at a party), and the property owner’s duty is to warn the guest of known hazards, but the owner isn’t required to inspect the property to find unknown dangers.
Invitee. An invitee is someone who is on someone’s property with permission for the mutual benefit of both parties. A classic and often common example of an invitee is a shopper in a grocery store. Property owners owe invitees the highest duty of care. Like with a licensee, a property owner must warn invitees of known hazards, but they also must look for unknown or hidden dangers, as well as maintain the property in a safe condition. Using the grocery store example: the store should check throughout the day for unsafe conditions such as spills that may have occurred in the aisles and clean them up—the store is more likely to be liable if there was a wet floor that it allowed to remain for several hours.
What are the common defenses in a premise liability case?
Depending on your status on the property, property owners have several defenses available to them if you’re injured on their property. These are some of the most common ones:
Contributory Negligence. As mentioned above, in all kinds of personal injury cases in Virginia, if you’re even slightly at fault for causing your own injuries, you can’t win premises liability claim. This applies regardless of your status on the property.
Open and Obvious Dangers. One of the most frequent defenses is that the hazard on the property was apparent and obvious, so the injury victim should have seen the danger and avoided it. An example would be a step on a staircase that is clearly broken, missing, or weak—the property owner could argue that you didn’t need a warning from them to know about that unsafe condition.
Property Owner’s Lack of Knowledge. If the property owner didn’t know about an unsafe condition on their property, they might not be liable for any injuries caused by it, but this depends on a couple of things. First, it depends on your status on the property—remember that property owners must warn both invitees and licensees of known dangers, but only invitees are owed a duty to look for unknown dangers. Second, when the unsafe condition came about is an important factor. If the owner didn’t have a reasonable opportunity to inspect for or learn of the hazard, they may have a defense. Using the grocery store example again: if a liquid is spilled onto the floor of an aisle and someone slips on it 30 seconds afterwards, the store could argue it didn’t have enough time to learn about that danger.
Assumption of Risk. Like with contributory negligence, assumption of risk is a defense available in most personal injury cases in Virginia. For example, if the property owner put up a sign warning guests of an unsafe condition and its risks, and the guest acknowledged the risks but continued anyways, the property owner may have an effective defense.
What damages are available in a premises liability case?
When you’ve been injured on someone’s property, you may have incurred what are known as “damages.” Damages are the legal jargon for losses or harms caused by someone’s negligence. Broadly speaking, there are two big categories of damages: “economic” and “non-economic.”
Economic damages (also known as “special” damages) are the easy ones to understand because these are damages that already have a dollar sign next to them for their value. For example: $10,000 of medical bills or $1,500 of lost wages.
On the other hand, non-economic damages (also known as “general” damages) can be a little bit harder to understand. We can consider these the “human” damages that don’t have a dollar sign next to them—we have to assign a value ourselves, and it’s what a jury would have the responsibility of doing. These damages include pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, humiliation, embarrassment, and inconvenience. For example, the pain from a broken leg can disrupt someone’s life, but that harm isn’t economic in nature. At a trial, a jury would be tasked with figuring how much that’s worth under the circumstances of the case.
There’s also a third category of damages, but it’s rare to obtain. These are called punitive damages. The first two categories described above (economic and non-economic damages) both are characterized as “compensatory” damages. As the name implies, those damages are meant to compensate you for the severity of your injuries and financial losses you’ve sustained. In contrast, punitive damages are less focused on you and, instead, are focused primarily on the conduct of the liable party. These are awarded only when the liable party has committed egregious conduct and are meant to punish and deter them (and others) from similar conduct.
What is Puglielli Injury Law’s process in a premises liability case?
That depends on the particular circumstances of the case, but the process generally looks like this:
Initial Consultation and Meeting. Typically, your first communication with us will be a phone call to discuss the merits of your case. During this consultation, we will advise you as to whether he can help you and add value to your potential claim. If the law or facts surrounding your particular claim would it make it a difficult case, we will be candid about your chances of success and the challenges that may lie ahead. If you’ve retained us for your case, we like to schedule a meeting with you to gather more information and discuss the next steps for your particular case.
Establishing Contact with Liable Parties and Insurance Companies. We will notify the property owner (and any other potentially liable parties) that you have legal representation. After they receive our notice, they will typically tell their insurance company about the claim, who will then reach out to discuss the claim with us.
Filing a Lawsuit. Unlike car accidents, premises liability claims practically require you to file a lawsuit early in the case for several reasons. The primary reason is that evidence in this type of case can easily disappear, become outdated, and witnesses/employees who have knowledge about what happened can become unreachable or unidentifiable. Another reason to file suit is that some companies and property owners may not respond to the initial notice of the claim, so filing a lawsuit is necessary to get their attention. We will advise you about if and when a lawsuit would be appropriate in your particular case.
Litigation and Discovery. After the lawsuit is filed, all parties in the case will spend a significant amount of time gathering evidence. We must gather evidence to prove your case, and the defense must gather evidence to defend itself. This is known as “discovery” and is usually the longest stage of a lawsuit.
Settlement or Trial. After discovery has been completed, the case will either settle or go to a trial by jury. Settlements happen frequently in premises liability cases, especially when a trial poses a significant risk to one or more parties. However, if the parties can’t reach a settlement agreement, then the only way left to resolve the dispute is to present the case to a jury and have them reach a verdict.
