Take Steps to Keep Your Property Safe

If your property is in a "dangerous" or "unsafe" condition, you may be liable for injuries to people on it even if you don't own the property.

Owners, renters or occupiers of property are required to exercise reasonable care to maintain their property in a safe condition to prevent injuries to people that are likely to be on the property.

Perhaps the most common example of a dangerous property condition involves interior or exterior floors or walkways. Obstructions or substances such as oil, water, and food often can end up on floors. These things may be considered to create dangerous conditions and result in liability to the property owner, renter, or occupier.

Generally, for liability to be imposed for injuries suffered by someone on the property, the condition must pose an unreasonable risk of harm. The owner of the property must either know or should have known of the dangerous condition, and must not reasonably believe that the visitor, customer, or guest will discover the condition or the risks involved.

Although both homeowners and businesses are obligated to ensure against these conditions, injury cases generally involve commercial properties because customers in stores are less likely to see or appreciate the risks of existing dangerous conditions.

Store owners, after all, construct displays in order to sell products. These displays are designed to attract attention and therefore often distract the customer's attention from the floors. Additionally, stores generally clean the floors on a regular basis so the store owner would be more likely to know of, or have reason to know of, any dangerous conditions on the floor.

Our firm has seen a number of cases in supermarkets involving water or food on the store floor, which caused a customer to slip and fall. Some examples we've seen of dangerous conditions in supermarkets include chewing gum, a smashed grape, spilled soap powder, beer from a broken bottle and a box sticking out in an aisle. These items can be very slippery and/or unexpected, and often are very difficult for the customer to see.

Another common problem with floors is uneven walking surfaces. We have handled cases where people have tripped over uneven tiles, thresholds, or even holes or depressions in floors or parking lots. Because of color patterns in the floor surface, sometimes these uneven surfaces are quite difficult to see. Bricks or tile with repeated borderlines often disguise uneven surfaces and people can easily trip and fall.

If you, as a property owner, renter, or occupier, are aware of uneven surfaces, slippery substances on the floor, or other conditions that would likely result in someone tripping or falling, you should take reasonable precautions to prevent them from causing harm. This may include regularly cleaning the floor, or placing warning strips or other devices on the floor that will point out these conditions. While customers cannot blindly walk where they cannot see, store owners should be particularly aware that their displays often distract people's attention away from the floor.

Young children in toy areas of the stores may be particularly prone to hurt themselves if they fall because of a slippery substance on the floor.

While all surfaces where people walk should be regularly maintained to prevent unreasonable risks of harm, if you expect a number of people to be walking in your store or place of business, you should regularly inspect the floors to make sure there are no slippery substances or other dangerous conditions on them.

Many supermarkets, restaurants and movie theaters have "sweep sheets" that employees mark off on regular intervals when they sweep, examine, or clean the floors. These sweep sheets can be very useful in showing that a store is or is not exercising reasonable precautions to prevent harm to people.

If you slip and fall because of an unsafe property condition and are injured, you may have the legal right to recover damages from the owner or person in control of the property.

The law does not require property owners to guarantee the safety of their properties. It does not require perfection, but does require that people act in a reasonable fashion. This requirement includes both the person who owns or controls the property and any person who is injured because of an unsafe condition.

Jim Testa is senior partner of the San Marcos-based law firm of Testa & Associates, LLP, and may be reached at 760-891-0490.