Premises Liability Claim
New Mexico property owners have to keep their property free from hazards and safe for visitors. If a person is injured due to an unsafe property condition, he or she has the right to seek legal recourse against the property owner to be monetarily compensated for injuries sustained and related expenses. This would be a premises liability claim and it can relate to all different types of property holdings, including residential and commercial buildings and exterior spaces.
What to Do If You Are Injured On Someone Else’s Property
Premises liability claim arises under a wide variety of circumstances. If you were injured on someone else’s property, it may have been at a residence where the property owner or property manager failed to maintain safe conditions. The grounds may have been poorly kept leading to a hazardous condition. Shopping areas and construction areas in places like parking lots or commercial centers are also common areas where people are injured due to unsafe conditions. While slip and falls are the most common type of premises liability claim, these kinds of claims can arise from other things such as falling objects or dangerous fixtures. Negligent security that led to something such as an assault or battery would also fall under the umbrella of premises liability. Whatever type of event led to the premises liability claim, certain things are going to need to be established to have your claim be successful.
With a premises liability claim, you must first establish the visitor’s status. The status of a visitor to a property will impact the strength of the premises liability claim. The different types of visitors are:
- Guests or invitees: These are people who the owner has specifically requested to be on the property. Guests or invitees have the strongest standing in premises liability claims.
- Licensees: These are the people who the owner has consented to be on the property, but they may or may not have been invited onto the property for a specific purpose.
- Trespassers: These are the people who enter a property not only without being invited but without the consent of the property owner to be there. Generally speaking, trespassers have weak premises liabilities claims. There are few exceptions to this.
Once the status of the visitor has been established, the strength of the claim will be evaluated based on the nature of the dangerous property condition that led to the injury. This means looking at how long the hazard had been present on the property and whether the owner knew about it. It is important to find out if the property owner knew about it and failed to remedy the hazard on time. It is also important to consider whether it was foreseeable that the dangerous condition on the property could cause harm to a property visitor. This all goes to the negligence element of a premises liability claim. The negligence of the property owner is what makes them liable for the injuries that resulted from the negligence. That is also important to keep in mind. The injury in the premises liability claim must have been a direct result of the accident caused by the hazardous property condition.
Enforcing Our Injury Victims’ Right to Full and Fair Compensation
You should not be left on the hook to pay medical bills and other expenses relating to an injury that was caused due to the negligence of another. MPJ Law Firm will fight to enforce your legal right to full and fair compensation. Contact us today.
Posted in: Premises Liability