You never plan to be injured in a slip and fall accident. You might be confused and scared after an unexpected event like this. You will want to make sure that everything you do is done properly after slipping and falling, but you might not even have any idea where or how to begin.
The steps you take after your slip and fall accident can have an impact on the size of any ultimate recovery you obtain for your injuries. If you understand what you need to do after your slip and fall accident, you can do what’s necessary to protect yourself and your ability to obtain a fair financial recovery for your injuries.
Here is what you need to do after being involved in a slip and fall accident:
1. Obtain Medical Attention
It is critical for your health to obtain medical attention after a slip and fall, but it’s also critical for your ability to be compensated for your injuries. Insurance companies can claim your injuries were caused by something other than your slip and fall if you wait too long to seek medical attention, so it’s critical to get your injuries immediately documented by a healthcare provider after your slip and fall.
Getting your injuries quickly documented prevents insurance companies from claiming your injuries were caused by something other than your slip and fall. Promptly seeking medical attention is one of the most important things you can do for your case after a slip and fall.
It also may not be immediately obvious to you after your slip and fall accident what your injuries’ full extent is. For example, you might not know you have head trauma after a slip and fall. Many different injuries might not be immediately apparent after a slip and fall. Healthcare providers will be aware of what to look for. They can ensure that every single one of your injuries is identified.
Having each and every one of your injuries identified and documented is crucial for both your health and your ability to be compensated for your injuries.
2. Examine the Scene
If you can, you should figure out exactly what caused you to slip and fall right after the accident. This is the best time to do this. Look around. If you can figure out what caused you to fall, you may be able to figure out what those in charge of the property may have done to make sure you didn’t slip and fall. This is critical for proving that someone else is liable for your injuries and, thus, legally obligated to compensate you for your injuries.
Many things could have caused you to fall. A business may have had an object in a place where it was easy to trip over it. The floor may have been wet. A business may have let more people inside than was safe to do so.
3. Take Pictures
While insurance companies and juries can visualize slip and fall scenes based on witness testimony, as the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Take photographs of the accident scene even if you don’t know exactly what you should be taking photos of.
You don’t need to use a fancy camera; your cell phone is adequate. Take pictures of the ground and everything around you. Your lawyer can tell you which photos will be the most important afterward. Pictures can be very important for showing insurance companies and juries that your story is truthful.
4. Get Contact Information of Witnesses
It’s important to have witnesses to corroborate your story. If your slip and fall occurred at a business, the best witnesses might be customers at the business. It’s vital to obtain their contact information so that they can later testify for you. Get the names, phone numbers, email addresses, and home addresses of witnesses.
Your slip and fall lawyer will quickly follow up with any witnesses, asking them for detailed written statements.
You might still have a strong case without witnesses, but having witnesses can make sure defendants can’t deny your story.
5. Make an Official Report
Businesses might desire for you to make an official accident report after your slip and fall. You should do so. Don’t lie, and be sure to include any information that is vital.
The reason you should make an official report is that defendants and insurance companies can claim you didn’t take your slip and fall seriously at the time it occurred if you don’t.
6. Document Everything
Write down everything that occurred before, during, and after your slip and fall accident as soon as you can, being sure to include all details, no matter how small.
It’s important to do this right away because memories can quickly fade. What’s easy to remember one day might be difficult to remember the next.
Keep an ongoing record of your injuries, symptoms, and pain. Your lawyer can assist you in organizing everything you document in order to build a strong case.
7. Hire Experienced Slip and Fall Lawyers As Quickly as You Can
The party responsible for your slip and fall and their insurance company are going to want to pay you as little as they can get away with. Talking to the responsible party or their insurance company can lead to your statements being taken out of context, or your words twisted into things you did not say.
When you hire experienced slip and fall lawyers like Nadrich Accident Injury Lawyers, they can handle all correspondence and negotiations with the at-fault party and their insurance company for you. Attorneys know when to offer the other side information and when not to.
We have been handling slip and fall cases for decades and know what to do in these cases because of this. We can handle negotiating with the at-fault party for you so that you can focus on recovering from your injuries.
Frequently Asked Questions
Most slip and fall cases reach completion within one to three years. However, there is no single answer to this question. Every slip and fall case will take a different amount of time to settle or reach a trial verdict. The amount of time a slip and fall case will take to reach completion is based on the individual circumstances of the case.
For one, slip and fall cases typically don’t reach completion until the injury victims reach what is known as maximum medical improvement (MMI). MMI is when:
• Doctors determine that further treatment won’t improve your injuries, or;
• You receive a firm prognosis from a doctor
The reason slip and fall cases usually don’t reach completion until you reach MMI is that lawyers can’t properly attach a value to your case until you reach MMI. Lawyers can’t determine the full nature or extent of your injuries and how your life is impacted by your injuries until you reach MMI. You should never accept a settlement until you reach MMI.
Slip-and-fall cases involving a lot of money will also tend to take longer. Insurance companies will put up more resistance before offering a fair settlement when a case involves a lot of money.
Slip and fall cases involving unclear liability will also tend to take longer. When liability is unclear, insurance companies won’t want to offer fair settlements until you hire a lawyer, file a lawsuit, and hire liability experts to prove that your injuries were caused by a defendant.
Other factors that can influence how long a slip and fall case will take include:
• Your case’s complexity
• Your injuries’ severity
• Your patience
• The caseload of your jurisdiction
• The defendant’s willingness to settle
There is no single answer to how much you can get for a slip-and-fall. The amount your slip and fall case may be worth will be dependent on the damages available in your individual cases.
You may be eligible to recover multiple types of damages in a slip and fall case, including:
• Medical bills: You might qualify for compensation for all past and future medical bills arising from your injuries.
• Lost wages: You might qualify for compensation for any time you missed from work.
• Pain and suffering: You might qualify for compensation for any physical pain and emotional suffering arising from your injuries.
The amount your slip and fall case will be worth will generally depend on the severity of your injuries. More severe injuries typically mean more medical bills, higher medical bills, more time missed from work, and more pain and suffering experienced.
Slip and fall cases are very hard to win if you don’t have experienced, expert slip and fall lawyers like Nadrich Accident Injury Lawyers representing you.
California juries are instructed that to win a slip and fall case, plaintiffs need to prove the following:
• A defendant owned, occupied, controlled, or leased the property
• The defendant negligently maintained or used the property
• The plaintiff was hurt
• The negligence on behalf of the defendant substantially caused harm to the plaintiff
In terms of slip and fall cases, a defendant negligently maintains or uses a property when they know or should know that a dangerous condition exists on the property, such as a slippery or uneven surface, but does nothing to fix or warn about the condition. Their negligence leads to somebody getting hurt by the condition. An example would be a restaurant mopping a floor, leaving it wet, and not putting out a sign warning about a wet, slippery floor.
Slip and fall cases tend to be difficult to prove because plaintiffs must prove that a dangerous condition existed and that the defendant had reasonable notice of danger and had reasonable time to remove or repair it, yet failed to correct the danger.
However, we have been successfully representing slip and fall clients for over 30 years. We are experts at gathering evidence, hiring experts to testify on our clients’ behalf, and proving that our clients’ injuries were caused by someone else’s negligence. We have obtained over $750,000,000 on behalf of our clients since 1990 by proving that other parties’ negligence caused our clients’ injuries.
The best way to file a slip and fall claim is to hire experienced slip and fall attorneys like Nadrich Accident Injury Lawyers, who can take care of the entire claims process for you and, if necessary, file a lawsuit when insurance companies are unwilling to pay you what you’re legally entitled to under California law.
It is important to hire a lawyer if you’ve been hurt in a slip-and-fall accident because insurance companies won’t pay you what you deserve unless you’re represented by a lawyer. Insurance companies know you can’t beat them in court without a lawyer, and they know that if they offer you a lowball offer, your only choices are to accept the offer or take them to court over it.
Most of our cases, however, settle out of court because insurance companies consider it a waste of time and legal fees to take us on in court where they know they will lose. Typically, the mere act of hiring an experienced slip and fall law firm like Nadrich Accident Injury Lawyers convinces the insurance companies to offer you a fair settlement offer.
Contact Nadrich Accident Injury Lawyers Today
Call us, text us from this page, or contact us online today for a free consultation if you or someone you love got injured in a slip-and-fall accident. You may be eligible for financial recovery.
We can help you find out more about how much your slip and fall case may be worth by breaking down all of the various damages that may qualify you for compensation in a slip and fall claim or lawsuit.
We won’t charge a fee until and unless we obtain financial compensation for you.
Jeffrey Nadrich
Jeffrey Nadrich is a nationally-recognized California plaintiff’s personal injury attorney. He is a graduate of UC Berkeley and UC Hastings College of the Law. He has successfully represented thousands of injury clients over the last 40 years.
