Slip-and-fall cases are some of the most misunderstood claims in personal injury. People often assume that because they were hurt on someone else's property, the property owner automatically owes them. Florida and Georgia law are both more nuanced.
In both states, the property owner's duty depends on the visitor's status. Business invitees — customers in a store — are owed the highest duty. The store must inspect for hazards, address them, or warn about them.
The plaintiff usually has to prove that the store had actual or constructive knowledge of the hazard and failed to act. (Florida's premises liability statute makes this constructive-knowledge requirement explicit for transitory foreign substances.) Stores defend these cases with inspection logs that show 'recent' checks and arguments that the hazard was 'open and obvious.'
The best thing you can do at the scene is report the incident, get an incident report number, photograph the hazard, get witness names, and ask whether the store has surveillance. The faster a preservation letter goes out for video, the better the odds it still exists when needed.
Injuries in slip-and-fall cases are often serious — hip fractures, wrist fractures, head injuries — and case values can be substantial when the evidence is preserved early.
