If you are injured in a Miramar Beach construction site slip and fall accident, consult an attorney as soon as possible. If the property owner failed to take adequate precautions regarding hazardous conditions on the premises, you could have a viable legal claim against them.
The ability to bring a successful lawsuit will depend on factors such as whether the injured party was an invited guest or whether the owner knew of the hazard. An experienced construction injury attorney at Emmanuel Sheppard & Condon could investigate your case and help you build a strong claim for compensation.
Miramar Beach property owners are generally required to maintain construction site premises in reasonably safe conditions and warn visitors regarding potential hazards that could lead to slip and fall accidents. If the owner does not adhere to this duty, you could bring an action for negligence.
The duty owed to you will depend on whether you were an invited guest, a third-party licensee, or a trespasser. Property owners owe the highest duty of care to an invited guest, such as a customer visiting a store. Courts will hold property owners to a more stringent standard of care to provide safe conditions for invited guests and to provide notice about known hazards.
Property owners owe the lowest duty of care to trespassers who come on the premises without permission. Under Florida Statutes § 768.075, property owners are not liable for injuries suffered by an undiscovered trespasser on their premises unless the injury resulted from gross negligence or intentional misconduct.
If the property owner owed you a duty of care, the court will next ask whether the defendant breached the relevant standard of care. This analysis will often hinge upon whether the owner was aware of the hazardous condition.
Miramar Beach property owners are responsible for repairing and providing warnings about known slip and fall hazards on construction site premises as soon as practicable. However, property owners cannot always escape liability if they did not know about the hazardous condition.
Courts will also hold a property owner liable for slip and fall accidents on the premises if the condition was something they should have known about, known as constructive knowledge. The court will ask whether a reasonable property owner would have known about the condition. If a property owner took no action after receiving complaints about the hazard, the court could conclude the property owner had constructive knowledge of the condition.
You must also show that your injuries directly resulted from the unsafe condition, meaning the hazard was the proximate cause of your harm. You must also show that you suffered damages from the incident. The court can rule that you are entitled to economic damages—such as hospital bills or lost pay due to missed time at work, non-economic damages—such as emotional distress or pain and suffering, or both.
You could also pursue punitive damages, which are intended to punish the defendant and prevent repeat behavior in cases where you can prove the property owner was grossly negligent. Fla. Stat. § 768.73 states that punitive damages cannot exceed three times the amount of total compensatory damages or $500,000, whichever is larger.
Injured parties are required to bring personal injury claims for slip and fall construction site accidents in Miramar Beach within the state’s applicable statute of limitations, according to Fla. Stat. § 95.11(4)(a). This means you must file a claim involving negligence within two years of the accident.
Your ability to recover damages is also limited if you contributed negligence to the incident that caused their injury. The state follows the doctrine of modified comparative negligence under Fla. Stat. § 768.81, which completely bars recovery if your contributory negligence exceeds 50 percent. If you remain under the threshold, the court will reduce your damages by your percentage of fault.
You should retain legal counsel as soon as possible if you were injured in a Miramar Beach construction site slip and fall accident. The state’s time limit for filing negligence claims could cause you to lose your claim if it is not filed on time.
Our legal professionals at Emmanuel Sheppard & Condon could provide a consultation to help determine whether a property owner negligently failed to repair or warn about hazardous conditions. Call today to schedule your case review.