Practice Areas

• Personal Injury Law for Tidewater Virginia and Virginia Beach
• Truck and Tractor Trailer Accidents
• Nationwide FELA Representation for Railroaders
• Legal Help in Virginia for Burn Survivors
• Brain Injury
• Amputation & Dismemberment Injuries
• Arm & Shoulder Injuries
• Pedestrian and Bicycling Injuries
• Ankle and Knee Injuries

Slips and Falls

Premises liability cases account for a large number of personal injury cases each year.  Premises liability occurs when a person who is lawfully on someone else's premises is injured as a result of some negligence of that property owner.  Slips and falls are among the most common injuries in premises liability cases.  In 2002, injury-causing slips and falls that required hospital visits numbered 506,172, nearly twice the number of people injured in vehicle accidents (258,877), according to the Center for Disease Control. Many slip and fall cases occur in public places, such as stores, restaurants, schools and office buildings. Under many circumstances, owners of homes can be found guilty of failing to follow presumed and ordinary standards of care when their negligence results in an injury.

Serving injured clients in Norfolk, Chesapeake, Newport News, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Hampton and other regions of Virginia, personal injury attorney Joe Perez and his legal team handle premises liability claims involving unsafe conditions, environmental hazards, improper traffic patterns and a wide variety of other issues.

In many cases, premises liability matters involve security issues such as physical security standards and generally accepted security practices.  For instance, if a resident of an apartment complex is physically assaulted by a trespasser, the resident may have a right to sue the apartment complex for failing to prevent the trespasser from entering the property.

Every premises liability case comes down to two basic questions.  These are: why were you on the property?  And did the property owner have prior knowledge of the injury-causing hazard on the property?  Joe Perez has extensive experience in finding the answers to those questions, and has helped many clients obtain just compensation for serious injuries – such as broken bones, back injuries, neck injuries, brain injuries, spinal cord injuries and soft tissue injuries – in cases where the owners failed to act responsibly in maintaining a reasonably safe environment.

Why were you there?

If you’ve been injured on someone else’s property, your case against the negligent party begins with establishing why you were there.  Virginia premises liability law views a plaintiff under three classifications – either invitee, licensee or trespasser.

Invitee: someone who is coming onto the property for some legitimate business purpose.  A man slipping on the floor of an office building lobby where he was attending a business meeting is one example of an invitee.

Licensee: someone who is on the property as a social guest.  Someone who attends a party and is injured falling down a long flight of steps not equipped with handrails is an example of a licensee.

Trespasser: is someone who is not allowed on the premises and who is there without the knowledge or consent of the property owner.

Your status determines to what extent the property owner is responsible for your safety while you are on the property. Obviously, someone who has been invited to a business meeting at an office building or a party at a residence and suffers an injury there has a stronger case under the law than a trespasser with no legitimate reason for being at a location.   But there are cases where even those designated trespassers under the law have successfully gained compensation for their injuries.  Persons who’ve been seriously injured by dog attacks after being on the property, or injured on property that did not have “No Trespassing” signs properly posted, are examples of trespassers who’ve filed legitimate suits.

Can it be proven that the property owner was truly negligent?

Unlike many other types of personal injury claims, premises liability claims require the party who is injured (the plaintiff) to prove that the property owner was aware of the defective condition on the premises prior to the injury.

The logic of this rule is that a property owner is not necessarily responsible for the safety of all persons on his premises but is simply required to exercise what is known as ordinary care. Obviously he can only exercise ordinary care as to those defects or deficiencies that he has some knowledge of or that he should have known of.  An experienced attorney knows how to conduct the investigation required to make such determinations and present them before juries.

If you’ve suffered a serious injury on someone else’s property, you owe it to yourself to consider all your legal options and determine if someone’s negligence was partially or fully to blame.  We know it can sometimes be uncomfortable having to consider legal action for an injury incurred at the corner store, your workplace or even at a friend’s house.  But it can’t be more uncomfortable than living with the aches, pains and limitations of an injury, quite possibly for the rest of your life. Sometimes legal action is the only way to ensure you receive the compensation you’ll need to move past your injury.  When it is, Joe Perez is ready to serve your long-term interests.

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