Slip & Fall Accidents Attorney in Portland, Oregon 

We may not see a slip-and-fall accident as very serious, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. According to the National Safety Council, the most preventable cause of nonfatal injuries in the United States is from falls. And, in 2020, falls were responsible for 33% of all nonfatal injuries. Oftentimes these falls are accidental, but even so, if someone else’s negligence led to unsafe conditions that caused you to injure yourself, you are eligible to start filing a claim against them.   

If you’ve recently been injured in a slip-and-fall accident and need to speak with a personal injury attorney, contact my firm, Injury Lawyer PDX, LLC. I have the experience and comprehensive skills to assist you during these challenging times and help you seek the compensation you deserve. I’m located in Portland, Oregon, and help clients throughout the state, including Clackamas, Washington, Multnomah, Marion, Lincoln, and Tillamook counties. 

Premises Liability in Oregon  

To fully understand your options for filing a lawsuit after an injury, you have to understand the concept of premises liability. You can determine premises liability in personal injury cases that occur on someone else’s property, such as private property, a store, or even a public space. In almost all cases, property owners have a duty to maintain a safe environment for anyone who’s legally on the property. If they neglect to use reasonable care to maintain their property to specific standards, they could be held liable for any injuries that occur due to their negligence.   

For example, if a store owner knows there’s water spilled in the middle of an aisle and fails to clean it up or put up proper signage to alert customers of the danger, and the customer slipped and injured themselves, they could be held liable for the accident. Another example could be a homeowner who failed to keep their dog contained, even though they knew it had an aggressive nature, and it ran off the property and bit someone. Because the owner knew that there were potential hazards on the property and did nothing to make them safer, they could be at fault for any injuries that occurred. 

Determining Liability   

When you get hurt on someone else’s property and seek compensation for the damages, you first must determine who is legally liable for the accident. In many cases, the property owner’s duty of care was neglected, and they will be the liable one. For example, if the poverty owner knew that there were rotting boards on their stairs and failed to warn someone about the danger, they could be held liable for any injuries sustained. In other instances, it would be a business owner who would be held liable if they failed to fix unsafe conditions in a store that resulted in an injured customer.  

In some cases, you may be injured on public property, and in this case, a government entity would be held liable. For example, if a section of sidewalk was severely damaged and uneven, a pedestrian could trip over it and hurt themselves and you could look into filing a lawsuit for an injury on public property. Finally, there are also some cases where the fault only lies with you and your own carelessness. 

Proving Fault  

When proving fault in a slip-and-fall case, you must meet three conditions. First, you must prove that the owner caused the condition that led to the fall. For example, if there’s a leak in a pipe on their property that’s causing water to cover the floor. Second, you must show that the owner didn’t fix the unsafe condition. And third, you’ll need to demonstrate that they should have known it was dangerous by “reasonable” person standards. In this example, the owner knew that the water was leaking and causing unsafe conditions and still did nothing to fix it, even though it clearly presented a danger to those walking through the area. 

Pure Comparative Fault in Oregon  

The last concept to understand is the rule of comparative negligence. Oregon is known as a pure comparative fault state, and this means that fault can be shared between two parties. For instance, if someone tripped over a pile of wood that was left out in a walkway and injured themselves, but that person was distracted by looking at their phone, the fault could be shared by both the property owner and the injured party. In Oregon, fault can be shared in any percentage, even if it means the property owner was 99% to blame and the other party only held 1% of the blame. In this case, the final settlement would be reduced by 1% to account for the victim’s share of responsibility.