On April 14, 2010, Florida Governor Charlie Crist signed into law a new requirements for proving injury cases caused by slip & falls. This law adopts older Florida law that was developed by years of judicial decisions. Prior to this law, recent changes made it easier for injured persons to prove their cases.
A person injured in an accident has the burden of proving the negligence of the person they alleged caused the injury. This new law provides that if a person slips and falls on a foreign substance in a business establishment, that person must prove that the business establishment had actual or constructive knowledge of the condition and should have taken action to remedy it. Constructive knowledge is proven circumstantially by showing either (1) that the dangerous condition existed for such a length of time that, through ordinary care, the business establishment should have known of the condition; or (2) that the condition occurred with regularity and was therefore foreseeable. Actual knowledge is when the business establishment directly causes the dangerous condition.
The law takes effect July 1, 2010. However, it is unclear if it is intended to apply to all slip & fall accident cases that have already occurred, or if it will only apply to injury cases that occur on or after July 1, 2010. The Florida courts may have to make that determination. In general, under Florida law, the general rule is that procedural or remedial statutes may operate retroactively but substantive states may not unless the Legislature has indicated a clear intent to the contrary.
Comment: This new law is intended to, and in fact does, make it more difficult for an injured person to prove the required negligence on the part of the business establishment. The injured person must establish how long a foreign substance was on the floor before he or she stepped in it and fell. As seen above, this is known as Constructive notice. This is the most difficult type of notice to prove.
This generally comes into play when the foreign substance got on the floor through the actions of another customer. In this type of case, the injured person must show that the substance was on the floor long enough for the business to have discovered the substance and clean it up. How long that time period needs to be is going to be at the heart of each case.
When most people fall in a public they even if they are hurt, they are also embarrassed. The last thing they think of doing is to preserve evidence for a legal claim. Taking pictures would be the best way to prove a claim if the person ends up having a serious injury. In a perfect world, the injured person, or a companion, would take photographs of the floor, substance and general area with the camera in their phone or with a disposable camera from the business itself (you can pay for it on the way out). They would also get the names, addresses and phone numbers of any witnesses. But this rarely happens. And that is what makes these cases so difficult.
If you have been injured due to a slip or trip and fall due to some foreign substance or object in a business, call us or fill out our Web Form under the Contact Us heading for a free consultation. In spite of the difficulty, our attorneys are experienced at handling slip & fall injury cases in and around Orlando as well as the rest of Florida.
