In New York, property owners have a legal obligation that requires adherence to a standard of reasonable care to prevent accidents and injuries arising from negligence. Essentially, they must take appropriate measures to discover and fix unsafe property conditions to maintain a safe environment for everyone and anyone on their premises. Failure of property owners to uphold their legal responsibilities can result in devastating consequences. If you’ve been injured in a slip-and-fall accident due to a safety hazard on someone else’s property, proving that they knew or should have known that the danger existed can be challenging. Please continue reading to learn how you may prove that a property owner was aware of the safety hazard that caused your injuries and how a dedicated New York City Premises Liability Attorney can help you today.
Do injury victims have to fulfill the burden of proof?
Injury victims are entitled to take legal action against a negligent party to seek monetary compensation for their incurred damages. However, they will be burdened with fulfilling the burden of proof before they can collect compensation. They must prove that the property owner was responsible for the premises. Therefore, they owe them a standard duty of care. In addition, they will have to provide evidence that the property owner failed to fix or provide adequate caution about the dangerous condition and that the hazardous condition resulted in their injuries. Ultimately, it must be proven that the property owner’s negligence directly caused their injuries. It would have otherwise been preventable if the property owner had taken the appropriate measures to fix the dangerous property condition. This can be a challenging undertaking. However, it is possible to establish a property owner knew or should have known about a safety hazard.
What evidence can help prove an owner was aware of a dangerous property condition?
Firstly, injury victims can prove that a property owner was aware of a safety hazard through the time requirement standard of their duty of care. Property owners are granted a reasonable amount of time to not only discover the unsafe property condition but also enough time to have the opportunity to fix it. In today’s society, most properties have surveillance cameras and ring doorbells that can provide video footage of the premises, which may demonstrate that a dangerous property condition was left unattended for a substantial amount of time before the injury occurred.
Furthermore, in the immediate aftermath of the accident, if you are physically capable, you should take photos of the accident scene. By capturing photos of the safety hazard that caused your injuries, you can easily demonstrate that the property owner should have noticed it and taken the appropriate measures to remedy the situation.
You can prove that a property owner knew about a safety hazard in several ways. To maximize your chances of fulfilling the burden of proof, it is in your immediate interest to retain the legal services of a skilled attorney from the legal team at Swerling Law, who can help you investigate and gather pertinent evidence that supports your case. Our firm is prepared to fight to help you attain the just compensation you deserve.
