Minneapolis Slip and Fall Lawyer

Minnesota businesses and home owners have an obligation to their patrons and visitors to provide a reasonably safe environment. This includes providing a safe entry to and exit from their property.  Premises liability cases involve injuries happening on another person’s property due to negligence on the part of the property owner. The most common premises liability disputes deal with home and business invitees slipping and falling. 

Fall down accidents may occur because of:

• Walkways covered with snow, ice, black ice or other hidden dangers

• Inadequate maintenance

• Insufficient lighting or failure to warn of known dangers

• Improperly constructed walkways and stairs.
  
  

Minnesota has severe winters.  Busy homeowners and shopkeepers often fail to properly shovel or put down sand and salt to melt snow and ice on their sidewalks and entryways.  There is no duty to remove snow as it falls, but once a reasonable time has passed; there is a duty to make one’s entryways and sidewalks passable.  Sometimes, confusion over who must maintain a city sidewalk leads to property owners failing to remove snow and ice, thus exposing pedestrians to danger.

Another common situation occurs when stores fail to mop up snow and rain that is tracked into their stores, leading to slippery conditions.  Floor mats put down to protect patrons can become creased or folded, leading to an unanticipated trip hazard.  Stores are also a common site of liquid spills that can be hazardous for their customers.

Improper drainage of water and ice from roofs or gutters can create pools of water.  The pooled water can cover trip hazards or can freeze, making a slip hazard. Property owners can fail to maintain their properties exposing visitors to dangerous conditions.

Meshbesher Personal Injury lawyers have successfully represented injured fall victims in all of these situations. Our Twin Cities Personal Injury Attorneys are here to help you. Insurance companies commonly blame the victim in a fall down case, arguing they were clumsy or not watching where they were going.  They will try to shame the injured party into not bringing an otherwise valid claim.  Don’t let this happen to you. 

If you have been injured in a fall down accident 1) If you can, take a photograph of the area you fell; 2) Seek medical attention; and 3) Call the Meshbesher Law Firm.

Complicated case law governs premises liability cases in Minnesota.

To recover damages for negligence, a plaintiff must show that the defendant owed the plaintiff a duty of care, that the defendant breached that duty, that the breach of the duty was the proximate cause of plaintiff’s injury, and that plaintiff did in fact suffer injury.

A possessor of land has a duty to use reasonable care to inspect and repair his premises or warn an entrant who comes upon his or her premises to protect the entrant from an unreasonable risk of harm caused by the conditions of the premises while he is on the premises. The duty is one of reasonable care to inspect, warn, and repair under the circumstances.

It is well settled Minnesota law that there is no duty on the part of a property owner to use reasonable care towards an invitee where the risk of harm is obvious to the visitor, unless the landowner should anticipate the harm despite such knowledge or obviousness. However, a landowner has a continuing duty to protect an entrant even for obvious dangers if the property owner could anticipate that an entrant would choose to encounter the danger despite the obviousness of the danger.

The Minnesota Court of Appeals, in the 2009 decision Andre Gilmore v. Walgreen Co, did an analysis of the open and obvious defense and came to the conclusion that a property owner has a duty of reasonable care to protect an invitee from a dangerous condition, notwithstanding that the condition is open and obvious, if the property owner should reasonably anticipate that other conditions or circumstances will distract the invitee’s attention from the obviously dangerous condition.

There is a two year statute of limitations for claims arising from a defect to the property and a six year statute of limitations for general negligence in Minnesota.  Rather than try to guess which case law or statute applies to your case, please call the Meshbesher Law Firm and we will be happy to give you a free consultation.