Premises liability law sets down the responsibilities for someone who owns a property to insure the safety of the persons who are on it. What that means in more common language is that people who own property and invite someone else on the property are responsible for making sure that their guests aren’t injured while they’re there. This applies especially to businesses, but it can also apply to private homes. If you’re a guest at a pool party and the property owner doesn’t maintain his property well enough, causing you to fall and break your arm, the property owner may well be liable for the costs associated with your injury.

The owner of the premises is generally only held liable for injuries that occurred on his or her property that were foreseeable. If the owner has left a rake on the lawn and someone breaks his or her ankle on it, that’s a foreseeable injury. If a sinkhole suddenly opens up and swallows the bedroom that someone is sleeping in overnight, the injury is substantially less foreseeable and the property owner is less likely to be liable.

In general, you can only sue a property owner for injuries that may have occurred to you when you were lawfully on his or her property, which is to say that generally a trespasser cannot sue someone for injuries that occurred while they were trespassing. That said, if the property owner has created an unjustified hazard for trespassers (in other words, a trap), then the property owner is more likely to be liable.

Children trespassers are a special area of this law, because they are frequently not able to realize the risk involved in dangerous areas on a property. As such, a property owner needs to take reasonable care to eliminate the risk of injuring children.

If you or anyone you know has been injured in a premises injury accident, either in a workplace or at a residence, please call us so that we can try to help you get the justice that you deserve.