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When you get hurt due to a slip and fall in Florida on someone else’s property, it’s usually a good idea to explore your options for compensation for any losses. This is especially true if the slip and fall was due to clear negligence on the property owner’s behalf that led to your accident.
To learn more about Florida slip and fall claims, read below or reach out to our office today to speak to an experienced personal injury attorney in Tampa, Florida.
After you suffer from any type of slip and fall accident in Florida, you could have several avenues available to help get compensation for your losses of income, injuries, and physical or mental pain and suffering, also called damages. A few options to consider, depending on the circumstances of your fall, include the following:
During the claim process for the insurance, the goal is to come away with a settlement amount that covers all the costs associated with your slip and fall injury. And you should also keep in mind that even if your case ends up in a Florida courtroom, you could get a settlement offer at any time before it goes to trial.
A statute of limitations is a law that sets a time limit on your ability to have the state’s civil court system hear your lawsuit. If you miss the deadline, there is a good chance that they’ll dismiss your case — unless you have a very rare exception that allows you to extend or alter your time limit to file.
In Florida, any party that sustains injuries in a slip and fall case has to file a lawsuit within four years of the incident. You can find this deadline outlined in
Florida Statutes 95.11(3)(6). This deadline applies to almost every personal injury lawsuit filed in the civil court system in Florida.
If you look at this deadline from a strategy standpoint, it’s a good idea to give yourself a generous buffer to file your lawsuit, even if you’re confident that the case will reach a settlement. At the very least, having the option to file and go to court will give you more leverage to use during any settlement talks that come up during the process.
Before you file your lawsuit or insurance claim for your slip and fall case, you should be prepared for the property owner to argue that you’re at least partly to blame for the accident. If they’re successful with this argument, you could lose a portion of your court-awarded damages.
Also, in the rare event that your lawsuit makes it to trial, the court will use the pure comparative negligence rule to determine what your share of the blame is for the accident. They’ll also use this rule to figure out how much compensation you’re entitled to from the property owner.
Under this rule, any damages the court awards you will get reduced based on how much of a percentage you were at fault for the accident. So, for example, say you had a slip and fall injury lawsuit and the court found that your blame percentage was 15%. The court also determined that your total damages — including lost income, medical bills, and mental or physical pain and suffering — was $10,000. The property owner will have to pay $8,500 to you. This is the original $10,000 compensation amount with 15% of your at-fault percentage subtracted.
Even if you settle before your slip and fall case goes to trial and even if you don’t actually file a lawsuit, the comparative negligence rule is usually still a factor to keep in mind. During the settlement negotiations, the property owner’s attorney and their insurance company will be concerned about what happens if your case doesn’t hold up in the courtroom.
So the settlement offer for your slip and fall from the other side will reflect how much they believe you are to blame for causing your own injuries. This is why it’s critical that you build a very strong liability case against the property owner.
If you had a slip and fall injury on government property in Florida, there are a unique set of deadlines and rules to follow. This is also true if it was a government employee or the government’s negligence that played a role in your injury. You’ll have to give the government agency notice of your claim, and you should be aware that most claims of this nature have a $200,000 damages cap.
Are you considering filing a slip and fall claim? Avoid the consequences of not knowing the laws, statutes, and deadlines by engaging a team before you file your claim. Reach out to Edwin P. Randolph, Attorney At Law in Tampa, Florida for help filing your lawsuit and outlining your options so you can decide whether or not to move ahead with your claim.
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Disclaimer: The information on this website is for general information purposes only. Nothing on this site should be taken as legal advice for any individual case or situation. This information is not intended to create, and receipt or viewing does not constitute an attorney-client relationship.
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