When you own a business, you have to ensure that it operates smoothly, but you also have to make sure that anyone who steps foot on the company’s premises is safe. As a business owner, it is your obligation to make sure that people don’t get injured when they enter your territory, so to speak.
If you don’t do this and someone ends up getting injured, the individual will have the opportunity to sue your business. This means that you might lose a lot of money.
However, there are a few situations when businesses can be sued for personal injuries. We will explore these situations in this article so keep on reading.
Duty of Care
Every customer on the property of the business is the business’ responsibility to keep safe and the business has to ensure that there is no danger present that may cause a client to get injured. Now, it’s important to bear in mind that this doesn’t mean that any injury the customer suffers will be something the business is responsible for. It’s unrealistic to think that a company will be able to prevent every single injury, and courts are aware of that.
For this reason, there is a good standard imposed on businesses by the court. Depending on the context, these requirements may vary, and things may be different in every state as well. Some of the things that the standard may include are:
- Cleaning the premises regularly to ensure slips and falls don’t happen
- Repairing any cracked or crumbling pavement around the entranceway
- Making sure there is a rug or mat near entrance ways to prevent water accumulation on a stone floor when it rains
- Telling customers when a floor is wet by putting some warning signs near the location
Proving Duty Breach
Breach of duty happens when the business isn’t successful in fulfilling its duty of care. That being said, one possible scenario is a customer going to the supermarket and failing to notice that there is liquid spilled on the floor. As a consequence, he slips and falls.
Therefore, breach of duty might have happened in different ways. An employee may have seen the spill and wanted to clean it up, but something else popped up and the worker forgot about the spill or had no time to clean it up. Another duty breach situation is when the business doesn’t have a good cleaning schedule.
When anything of the sort happens, a breach of a duty of care will be applied. Also, anyone who wants to sue the company will have to prove the breach.
Since it may be difficult to deal with this situation, an injured customer should hire a personal injury attorney, who will know what to do in this case. Every state will have its own personal injury lawyers that you can seek help from. Texas, for instance, is a state with over a million small businesses, so personal injuries are bound to happen. Fortunately, filing an injury claim in Texas is easy, and you have two years from the injury date to file a lawsuit. This gives you enough time to recover, hire a personal injury attorney, and collect proof so that you have a strong case.
The Bottom Line
A company can be sued for personal injury, but you have to know when this is possible. If you think a breach of duty happened, you should talk to an expert, hire a personal injury attorney and see what can be done to prove the breach of duty and claim compensation.
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