Whenever you set foot on someone else’s land, you have a right to expect the land to be free of unreasonably dangerous conditions and that you will be warned in advance of any hazards the landowner has not yet addressed. A landowner who fails to live up to their duty of care in this regard may hold civil liability for any injuries their negligence caused you to sustain.
As any experienced personal injury attorney could tell you, getting a favorable result from this sort of civil claim can be far from a simple or straightforward process. If you want a fair shot at getting fair financial recovery for your injuries, you should make contacting a Lancaster premises liability lawyer your top priority.
One important thing to understand about premises liability law is that the obligations placed on landowners by their duty of care change for different types of visitors. For trespassers visiting property illegally, landowners only have a duty not to intentionally cause injury by knowingly creating dangerous conditions on their land.
For licensees visiting for their own purposes or everyone’s mutual benefit, like house party guests or landscaping contractors, the landowner must provide advance warning of all hazardous conditions they already know about on their property. Finally, for invitees like retail store customers visiting for the landowner’s benefit, the landowner must provide advance warning of known hazards and inspect their property regularly to discover and address as-yet unknown hazards. An attorney in Lancaster could determine a person’s classification and how it could affect their premises liability claim.
A premises liability attorney can help hold a landowner in Lancaster who causes injury by failing to fulfill an applicable duty of care liable for economic and non-economic consequences of that injury, including:
A court can technically impose additional punitive damages against the defendant in a premises liability claim, but this is rare and only happens in situations involving extreme negligence or intentionally malicious conduct.
A landowner being liable for an injury on their property based on negligence does not prevent the injured person from being found partially at fault for their injuries based on their own negligence. In fact, 42 Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes § 7102 allows a court to reduce available compensation—or even bar recovery altogether—for any injured person assigned a share of comparative fault.
Additionally, 42 P.S.A. § 5524 allows most people two years after initially getting hurt to file suit against anyone who contributed to causing their injury. Failing to hire a premises liability lawyer in Lancaster to formally start the filing process before this deadline will almost always lead to the case being thrown out of court for being time-barred.
Premises liability law works similarly to standard personal injury law in some ways and differently in others. Sorting out those difficulties and applying the law effectively to your unique situation is not something you want to try doing without support from skilled and experienced legal representation.
Fortunately, you have assistance available from a seasoned Lancaster premises liability lawyer with the expertise necessary to get you paid what you deserve. Call today for a consultation.