Your Injury, Our Fight!
Your Injury, Our Fight!
An article by John Cooper of Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers about the law of premises liability has been published in The Journal of the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association.
The article is entitled The Top Ten Tips About Premises Liability From Sign Up to Filing the Complaint.
It comes as a book on premises liability is published by John Cooper and his colleague Bill O’Mara. The book is Top Ten Tips If You Are Injured At a Store, Hotel or Restaurant in Virginia.
In the new article John Cooper provides advice to attorneys who are taking on premises liability cases. Here are some of the tips.
1 Think Big
Size matters in premises liability cases. “With more than 25 years practicing law in Virginia, I have learned that only serious injuries like traumatic brain injury, broken bones, permanent injuries, and injuries requiring surgery are practical to pursue as premises cases,” writes John Cooper.
If you have suffered a sprain, it may be painful but it make not be worth your while taking legal action.
2 Conceive a Viable Theory of Liability
It is helpful in premises liability cases if the injured party can explain what the business did that ended up leading to their injury. It makes sense to “develop a plausible liability theory from the inception,” states John Cooper.
We are all familiar with spills on the floors of a business, but liability for foreign substances on the floor “requires actual or constructive notice to the business of the danger with enough time to have cleaned it up or warned of the same.”
In slip and fall cases involving a substance, the person who is injured must show that the substance remained long enough on the floor for the establishment to have discovered it.
3 Look For “Open and Obvious” Reasons to Decline the Case
Lawyers will have a hard time winning the case, if the jury thinks that the injured person contributed to the accident. Virginia recognizes the contributory negligence defense which means if a person is even one percent to blame they may not recover damages. It’s important to ask if the danger was so open and obvious that the person who was hurt should have seen it.
4 Force The Store to Secure the Surveillance Tape or Video
There’s always a danger that a store or another business, may seek to destroy this evidence. Lawyers should send a spoliation letter requesting the business to keep this evidence.
5 Use Smart Phones for High Speed Information Collection
If you have a phone and are injured, get snapping pictures and videos if you are able to. Photographs and necessary measurements are “key aspects of the scene because the commercial environment can quickly change after an incident,” writes John Cooper.
If you have been hurt in a store, at a restaurant or another business, call Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers for a free consultation at 757.455.0077 or see CooperHurley.com. When It really Counts, Count on Cooper Hurley.