Slip and Fall Defense Attorneys in Indiana

Personal Injury Lawyers Serving Marion County and the State of Indiana

If an individual slips or falls on your property and suffers from an injury, you could potentially be held liable for any damages that he or she alleges in the complaint. Damages may include the individual's hospital bills, transportation needs if his or her mobility is impaired, disability services if he or she becomes disabled in the fall, or even mental health treatment for issues like anxiety or depression that occur following the accident.

However, just because an individual suffers from a fall and files a personal injury claim against the owner of the property where the fall occurred does not necessarily mean that he or she will receive compensation. In order to receive monetary compensation for an injury caused by unsafe conditions on privately-owned property, the claimant must prove the property's owner acted negligently and that this negligence created or failed to address a hazardous condition.

At Due Doyle Fanning & Alderfer, LLP, our team of skilled Indianapolis premises liability attorneys can help you build a case against a claim and reduce or even eliminate the damages allegedly being claimed. Our aggressive team of litigators can provide representation when you need it most. If you are facing a slip and fall claim for an injury that occurred on your property, contact an experienced insurance defense attorney as soon as you can to discuss possible defense strategies.

Possible Defenses Against a Slip and Fall Claim

There are many reasons why an individual's slip and fall claim may be deemed invalid. Some of these defenses are:

• The individual was trespassing. In Indiana, a property owner has a duty of care to all individuals who enter his or her property. This duty of care determines how liable the owner is for any injuries that these individuals sustain while on the property. Property owners owe trespassers the lowest duty of care, which means that their only obligation toward trespassers is that they do not intentionally create unsafe conditions or act in a way that willfully endangers a trespasser's safety;
• The individual contributed to the fall. In Indiana, personal injury claims are subject to the comparative negligence law, which states that a fall victim is entitled to receive monetary compensation for his or her injury only if he or she is less than 50 percent responsible for the accident. If he or she is found to bear more than half of the responsibility for the fall, he or she may not receive compensation. Additionally, if he or she is found to be less than 50 percent but more than zero percent responsible for the fall, his or her compensation package may be reduced according to the percentage he or she contributed to the fall. This means that an individual seeking $10,000 who was determined to be 20 percent responsible for a fall may only receive up to $8,000;
• The owner did not know about the hazard on his or her property;
• The owner did all that he or she could do to address the hazardous condition; or
• The hazardous condition was so obvious that any reasonable person would have known to avoid it.

Indianapolis Slip and Fall Defense Attorneys

If you are facing a claim after another individual suffered from a slip or a fall that left him or her injured on your property, contact our attorneys at 317-635-7700 to discuss possible defenses you can use against the claim.