If you get hurt on someone else’s property due to their negligence, you may be entitled to recover financial compensation for your losses. West Virginia slip and fall laws permit injured parties to file insurance claims or sue liable parties for their injuries and subsequent damages. That said, premises liability cases in West Virginia are more challenging to prove negligence, especially without legal representation. Schedule a free case evaluation with a West Virginian slip and fall lawyer to discuss the merits of your slip and fall.
Understanding Premises Liability
Premises liability is a legal concept holding negligent property owners and occupants responsible for injuries that occur on their premises and cause damages, such as medical bills and income losses. Property owners can be residential or commercial, private or employer. The property owner or occupant has a legal obligation or duty of care to maintain their premises in a reasonably safe condition for visitors.
This level of care typically includes a duty to maintain, warn, and inspect. Premises liability slip and fall cases in West Virginia involve proving the four elements of negligence: duty of care, breach of duty, causation, and damages:
- Duty of Care: The property owner or occupant has a legal obligation or duty of care to maintain their premises in a reasonably safe condition for visitors. This level of care typically includes a duty to maintain, warn, and inspect.
- Breach of Duty: The property owner failed to uphold their duty of care to maintain safe conditions by neglecting to take reasonable steps to prevent foreseeable accidents or provide adequate warnings about known hazards on the property.
- Causation: The property owner’s failure to maintain safe premises is directly responsible for causing your accident, injuries, and damages.
- Damages: The injured party suffered actual loss or harm from injuries sustained in the slip and fall, such as medical and rehabilitation costs, lost income, and pain and suffering.
However, Article 7 of West Virginia slip and fall laws (code §55-7-28) states that the property owner owes no duty of care to protect others when dangers are reasonably obvious. For example, obvious debris in the middle of a walkway or a spill marked by a posted wet floor sign might not be circumstances warranting filing a legal action.
Common Causes of Slip and Falls
Slip and falls account for over eight million hospital emergency room visits annually—representing the leading cause of ER visits. Common causes of slip and falls that may warrant negligence in a premises liability cases are as follows:
- Inadequate or poor lighting
- Unmarked wet or recently waxed floors
- Standing water due to neglected drainage issues
- Loose floorboards, carpets, mats, or rugs
- Broken or uneven floorboards or sidewalks
- Broken or uneven stairs
- Clutter and debris
- Exposed wires, cords, and other tripping hazards
- Lack of slip-resistance on walking surfaces
- Lack of handrails
- Failure to promptly clean up spills
- Falling from a stool, ladder, or scaffold (workers comp/construction accidents)
- Overloading a ladder, landing, scaffold, stairway, or other surface (workers comp/construction accidents)
Slip and fall accidents can cause severe injuries and fatalities, especially in older populations. They are the second leading cause of severe spinal cord injuries and brain injury symptoms for people 65 and older. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gathered slip and fall statistics, demonstrating that people aged 85 and over are 10 to 15 times more likely to experience hip fractures than people aged 60-65 in a slip and fall.
Who Is Liable According to West Virginia Slip and Fall Laws?
West Virginia slip and fall laws list several possible liable parties responsible for your injuries and damages after an accident. Who is liable depends primarily on the circumstances of your accident. Possibilities for liability include:
- Property Owners or Occupiers: Property owners have a reasonable duty of care to keep their property safe. That means identifying and fixing potential hazards before they cause accidents and injuries, such as cleaning up spills, fixing broken stairs, and providing adequate lighting.
- Property Management Companies: Property management companies or landlords responsible for maintaining the property where a slip and fall occurs can become liable for injuries and damages. These companies generally contract with property owners to handle maintenance and repairs, making them legally obligated when negligence leads to slip and fall accidents.
- Contractors and Maintenance: Contractors and grounds maintenance may be liable in West Virginia if they create hazardous conditions that lead to slips and falls. For example, if a landscaper leaves a weed eater on the sidewalk and someone trips over it or its cord, the landscaping company can be responsible for injuries and damages caused by a slip and fall.
- Employees and Workers: Employees and workers at commercial properties, such as construction sites, shopping centers, and retailers, may be liable for injuries if they create a condition that leads to a slip and fall. For example, if they do not clean up a spill within a reasonable timeframe or fail to mark a mopped floor with a wet sign.
- Government Entities: Government entities or municipalities may be responsible for maintaining public buildings, sidewalks, driveways, parking lots, roadways, and parks. Injured parties can file a slip and fall accident claim if they fail to fix or warn of unsafe conditions. West Virginia slip and fall laws may differ for government entities, so it’s best to speak to a slip and fall attorney immediately.
Sometimes, your West Virginia slip and fall case may have multiple liable parties. For example, if an employee or worker’s negligence is responsible for a slip and fall, premise liability lawyers will also pursue compensation from the company or property owner. Your lawyer will investigate all relevant possibilities for your claim.
What to Do After a Slip and Fall in West Virginia
After a slip and fall, it’s important to prioritize your medical and legal rights. Start by getting a comprehensive medical evaluation and following your recovery treatment plan. You’ll also want to document injuries and your pain and suffering and hire a slip and fall lawyer to handle your case.
Get a Medical Evaluation
The first thing you should do following a slip and fall is seek medical attention, regardless of how you feel. The onset of injuries, such as whiplash and concussion, can take days to manifest. Injuries a medical professional will examine you for symptoms of following a slip and fall include:
- Head injuries (lacerations, concussions, traumatic brain injuries (TBIs)
- Neck injuries (whiplash, fractured cervical spine)
- Back injuries (sprains, strains, herniated discs)
- Spinal cord injuries
- Soft tissue injuries
- Broken or fractured bones (hip, wrist, and ankles are common)
You must have the accident on record medically; the sooner, the better. If you delay treatment, your claim can be more challenging.
Follow Treatment Plan
After the hospital, urgent care, or primary care physician assesses your slip and fall injuries—they will discharge you with a recovery care plan. You must follow it to ensure you heal properly within the two-year statute and to be taken seriously by insurers. If you consistently miss or cancel appointments, insurance companies will take that as an indication of being recovered or without injuries. It helps their case to deny liability or avoid paying your claim.
Document Injuries and Pain and Suffering
West Virginia slip and fall laws require proper documentation of injuries, treatment, and pain and suffering to be compensated for these damages. Medical bills, pay stubs, and receipts document your economic losses. You must keep a detailed pain journal detailing these damages to prove pain and suffering. Your pain journal should include entries documenting the following:
- Time, location, duration, frequency, and severity of your pain (scale 1-10)
- The type of pain—throbbing, achy, dull
- Activities that worsen pain
- Record of related symptoms—numbness, tingling, dizziness, and headaches
- Pain management—massage, psychotherapy, icing and heating, and breathing exercises
- Pain medications you take—including dosage, side effects, and dependency
- Emotional and mental suffering
- Sleep disturbances and loss
- Psychological symptoms—post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and post-accident depression
- Pictures of your injuries following the slip and fall
Your pain journal is only relevant if you provide adequate details and dates and consistently document injury symptoms. Some accident victims choose to leave video journal entries demonstrating how their injuries impact their daily lives. Ask your slip and fall lawyer to determine the best method.
Hire a Slip and Fall Attorney
West Virginia slip and fall laws impose a two-year statute of limitations on filing an insurance claim or lawsuit for personal injuries and damages. That may sound like a lot of time, but it can go by quickly when dealing with severe injuries, lengthy recovery timelines, and disabilities. Hiring a lawyer immediately ensures a smoother process from start to finish.
How a Slip and Fall Lawyer Can Help
Slip and fall lawyers are educated and experienced, communicate with insurers, and work within the legal system daily. They are best equipped to investigate your slip and fall, reconstruct your accident, calculate damages, negotiate settlements, and represent your case in court if it requires litigation.
Investigating Your Slip and Fall
A crucial part of establishing liability and proving negligence of the at-fault property owner is investigating your slip and fall. Your slip and fall attorney will gather all evidence, including incident reports, photographs of injuries and the accident scene, witness statements, and any video footage capturing the slip and fall.
Reconstructing Your Slip and Fall
Accident reconstruction specialists will document the scene and collect any data they can use to pinpoint negligence. They may use special equipment to accurately document the condition of walking surfaces contributing to your fall and compare it to safety standards and building code requirements. They also consult on issues such as coefficient of friction testing (COF), handrails, and potholes and cracks in the sidewalk or street.
Calculating Case Damages
Before sending a demand letter to liable insurers, slip and fall attorneys will exhaustively value all the damages in your claim. Damages involve economic losses and non-economic damages, such as:
- Healthcare Costs: All medical expenses associated with your slip and fall, including emergency services, surgeries, hospital stays, doctor visits and follow-ups, physical therapy, orthopedics, rehabilitation services, in-home nursing care, and future medical care.
- Lost Earnings: All income losses due to your slip and fall, such as lost wages or salary, non-salary compensation (tips, commissions, bonuses), overtime, benefits (healthcare, retirement, pension), and diminished earning capacity or future earnings.
- Property Damages: Any property damages in your slip and fall, including glasses, sunglasses, clothing, shoes, purses, jewelry, smartwatches, and cell phones.
- Domestic Services: All hired services required to perform daily tasks you cannot do after a slip and fall, such as cooking, cleaning, laundry, childcare, grocery, food, and prescription delivery services.
- Non-Economic Damages: All non-economic damages warranting compensation, such as chronic pain, lifelong pain management, disability, a decreased quality of life, disfigurement, a shortened life expectancy, loss of consortium, and emotional suffering.
- Wrongful Death: All damages you can recover after losing a loved one to wrongful death in a slip and fall, including loss of consortium, final medical costs, final arrangement expenses, loss of parental guidance, lost financial support, and a lost prospect of inheritance.
Save all financial documents that demonstrate losses due to your slip and fall. Paperwork may include billing statements, invoices, and receipts for out-of-pocket expenses, like copays and prescription meds. Remember to keep a consistent and detailed pain journal to prove pain and suffering.
Negotiating Your Settlement
One of the biggest benefits of hiring an experienced slip and fall lawyer is that they are skilled negotiators confident about demanding what is fair. Where others may bow out or fear asking for more, attorneys don’t. They will insist liable insurance companies reasonably value your claim. Negotiations can last a few rounds before all parties agree.
Representing You in Court
Your case may go to trial when attorneys and insurance companies fail to reach a settlement agreement. Your slip and fall attorney will file the necessary motions, enter discovery, exchange interrogatories and depositions with the defense, and prepare witnesses. Still, they will continue negotiating behind the scenes to avoid trial. Most slip and fall accidents are resolved without a need for litigation.
Consult a West Virginia Slip and Fall Lawyer
Schedule a free case evaluation if you or a loved one suffered a slip and fall in West Virginia to determine a right to legal action, including the one to recover financial compensation. You’ll want to uncover a plan to secure a settlement for your losses.
Jeffery Robinette was admitted to practice law in 1991 and is licensed in all levels of state and federal trial courts in West Virginia. Mr. Robinette is also licensed in all state and federal appeals courts in West Virginia and the United States Supreme Court. As a National Board Certified Trial Attorney who has handled hundreds of motor vehicle, injury, and construction defect claims and a leading author on insurance claims settlement issues and difficulties in West Virginia, Jeff Robinette is uniquely qualified to represent your best interest.
