Best Slip and Fall Lawyer in Miami

With an experienced slip and fall lawyer, Miami residents can get the compensation they deserve after an injury.

Slips and falls are some of the most commonly reported injuries in the United States. They happen anywhere. Slips and falls happen inside a friend’s home, at a hotel on a vacation, or walking from your table to the restroom in a restaurant.

Slips and falls often cause serious injuries to victims. Think about it. When you slip unexpectedly, you react poorly. Usually, you don’t have time to brace yourself or break your fall appropriately. 

What can end up happening is broken bones and head injuries. 

The sad thing is that most of these injuries are preventable. If only property owners responsibly managed slippery areas, installed railings, and cleaned up messes quickly, a lot of them wouldn’t happen. 

If you or someone you know falls in a slip and fall accident, you may have grounds to pursue a personal injury case to recoup costs associated with the injury. 

For a slip and fall lawyer, Miami residents deserve the best. You will need money to pay for medical costs, pain and suffering, and lost income from work. For some people it is a lifetime of disability. Or worse.

Here’s what you need to do after a slip and fall to win your case. 

Why Slip and Falls Happen

Not everyone who falls will go on to win a personal injury case against a business, property owner, or some other entity. 

Sometimes mistakes happen, and the courts account for that. That’s not what any slip and fall victim wants to hear, but knowing that you may or may not have a case is important to begin. It’s not always open and shut. 

What needs to happen for a slip and fall personal injury case to proceed? Well, there needs to be negligence in the case, and you and your attorney must prove the negligence exists. That means someone did something they shouldn’t or failed to do something they should have done (to prevent the fall).

Sometimes accidents happen, sure, but other times the property owner or entity failed in their duty of care. For example:

• A landlord left soapy water on an apartment complex property’s floor for too long, and a resident slipped and fell, breaking a hip. 
• A hotel failed to mark an area where maintenance people were power washing floors, and a guest walked by and fell. 
• A restaurant failed to properly maintain their carpet, and wrinkles or tears in the carpet tripped a diner and injured them. 
• A business has a steep ramp and fails to put out anti-slip mats when it rains, causing  a patron to slip and suffer serious injuries.

These are just some examples of slips and falls where the owner or entity was negligent. Let’s take a look at what negligence is and how to prove it in your case. 

The Elements of Negligence

You can say a lot of things are “negligent”, but in the legal sense, negligence must include the following four elements. They are:

1. A Duty of Care Existed – There must be a recognized duty of care between two parties. For instance, a hotel has a duty of care for guests, and a cruise ship has a duty of care for people on their ship. If you invite people over for a dinner party, you have a duty of care for them. Basically, when a duty of care exists, one party has a legal responsibility to prevent any sort of physical harm to the other. 
2. There Was a Breach of the Duty of Care – For negligence to exist, someone must breach their duty of care. In most personal injury cases, a judge or court will look at what happened and measure the circumstances against what a reasonable person would do in a similar situation. Did the person or business rise to that standard of care? If not, negligence may exist. 
3. Cause in Fact – Ok, so this probably sounds like technical legal speak, but cause in fact essentially means that the person, business, or other entity directly caused the dangerous situation to exist. For example, they knew the carpet was ripped and did nothing, or they knew that stair railings were installed incorrectly and decided not to fix them because they wanted to save money. 
4. There Is Proximate Cause – Their failure to do something or correct mistakes directly led to the injuries. 

Ordinary Negligence vs. Gross Negligence

Have you ever heard the term “gross negligence”? Most slip and fall cases in Miami and other places either deal with negligence or gross negligence. 

Gross negligence is generally more extreme. It’s not something simple like not noticing a spill of water on the ground in a grocery store aisle. Often, it’s a demonstrated track record of poor management, dangerous conditions, neglect, and reckless behavior. 

Basic negligence typically relates to careless mistakes or inattention to the happenings of a business or on a property. 

Gross negligence, on the other hand, is much more severe. It may be gross because the business knew other people had slipped there before but chose not to do anything about it.  This causes aggravated liability. Usually, higher damages are awarded in court or via a settlement. 

Slip and Fall Lawyer Miami Options

Talking to a lawyer is the best thing you can do to determine whether you should pursue a personal injury case. 

Finding the right lawyer soon after a slip and fall incident is crucial. 

The decisions you make in the immediate aftermath of your fall will have an outsized impact on your case. 

Thankfully, when it comes to finding a slip and fall lawyer, Miami residents have a lot of good options. Some very experienced lawyers will guide you through what you need to do. They’ll guide you in:

Documenting Evidence

Taking pictures of the scene. Creating a written record of the events. Finding eyewitnesses. 

Getting Medical Care

Talking to doctors who will treat your injuries and examine what type of long-term effects exist from your injuries. 

What You Should Say

How to deal with your insurance company, the offender’s insurance company, the police, and other parties involved. 

Negotiating Settlements

What’s a fair compensation number? A good lawyer will know how to get the highest payment amount for your pain and suffering. 

The right lawyer will do this and a lot more. 

Finding a Slip and Fall Lawyer Miami Expert

Choosing a slip and fall lawyer Miami expert is vital to the outcome of your case. You must find an attorney with experience dealing with your type of case. 

For example, if you’re trying to pursue a slip and fall case against a landlord you believe was negligent, you should find a premises liability lawyer who can help you build a case. 

For the most part, an experienced, qualified lawyer can tell you in minutes whether you have a case and what sort of damages you’re looking at. They’ll walk you through what to say and do, and what you can expect in terms of a timeline. 

When you talk to potential attorneys, here’s what you should know:

Take advantage of no-obligation consultations

Good lawyers offer free phone or in-person consultations to hear about your injury, what happened, and decide whether you have a case. Take advantage of these and avoid paying someone just to walk in the door. 

Do Some Research On a Slip and Fall Lawyer Miami

Visit the lawyer’s website. Look at their past cases. See if they’ve got any online reviews and what other clients said about them. It’s hard to hide bad lawyers these days. Stay away from any red flags. 

Look at Past Settlement Amounts

Ask attorneys about what you can expect when it comes to damages. Yes, you’re dealing with time off work and hospital bills now, but what if your injuries or disability are permanent? Your case should address the present and the future. The right lawyer will have the resources to measure the financial impact of a slip and fall for the rest of your life. 

Dealing with People After a Slip and Fall

You are on vacation in Florida and you’re walking down the hallway of your hotel. The floors are marble tile (it’s a nice hotel, of course!), and you slip on a puddle you can’t see. You try to break your fall by extending your arm, only to break it under your body weight as you fall. 

People in the area rush over to check on you. They probably call 9-1-1 and alert the hotel employees. Pretty soon, a hotel manager is at the scene attentively caring for your needs and apologizing profusely. You hear someone mention that the water must have come from the same leaky air conditioning unit they’ve struggled with for the past few months. 

While it may seem like everyone is nice and helpful now, their failure to perform maintenance puts you at risk. Your life changes and you’re on the hook for medical costs and possible lost income. That’s when you need a slip and fall lawyer Miami team to help. 

At Leighton Panoff Law, we help people win the justice they deserve after injuries. Talk to us today to find out if you’ve got a case!