When you enter someone else’s private property, you accept a certain level of risk of injury from hazardous conditions beyond your or the property owner’s control. However, the property owner has a broader duty of care to reasonably protect you from accidental injuries, provided you are lawfully on the property.
If you have been hurt because a property owner failed to abide by the duty they owed you and allowed you to get hurt by an unreasonably dangerous property condition, you should contact a Chesterton premises liability lawyer sooner rather than later. You may have grounds to demand substantial civil compensation for the losses your injury has caused and will cause you, and the help of a seasoned personal injury attorney from the Law Offices of David W. Holub could be vital to achieving the best possible case result.
What Kinds of Hazards Can Justify Premises Liability Claims?
It is worth emphasizing that property owners are not automatically liable for every injury that occurs on their property, sometimes even ones that stem directly from dangerous conditions. For example, it is generally not possible to sue over an injury caused by an open and obvious hazard, like a downed power line that any reasonable person would know to stay away from.
Beyond that, the hazard must also be something the landowner had direct or—if the visitor is an invitee visiting specifically for the landowner’s benefit—constructive knowledge of. A Chesterton premises liability attorney can help determine whether a particular hazard was both subtle enough to potentially go unnoticed by a reasonable person and serious enough that a property owner had a legal duty to address it.
Getting Around Legal and Procedural Obstacles
Legal counsel can help build a strong civil claim for an injury on someone else’s property within the statute of limitations timeframe. Under Indiana Code §34-11-2-4, individuals generally have two years from the date another’s negligence causes an injury to file a lawsuit. Missing this deadline typically results in the court dismissing the case, leaving the injured party without any legal recourse for compensation.
Perhaps even more importantly, a property liability lawyer in Chesterton can help fight accusations made by a property owner that an injured person is partly or primarily at fault for causing their own injuries. In the former scenario, a court could reduce the total amount of money awarded to that injured person in proportion to their assigned share of comparative fault. In the latter scenario, I.C. §34-51-2-6 would allow that court to throw the case out altogether, just like if the injured person had violated the statute of limitations.
Talk to a Chesterton Premises Liability Attorney for Help With Your Case
Landowners who injure visitors by failing to maintain their property properly can face civil liability for their actions, just as drivers who cause car accidents can. However, in practice, premises liability claims operate very differently from motor vehicle crash cases and other types of personal injury litigation.
Guidance from an attorney with a track record of getting positive results from cases like yours can make all the difference in how effectively you can navigate the litigation process and how much compensation you ultimately receive for your efforts. Call today to learn more about what a Chesterton premises liability lawyer from the Law Offices of David W. Holub could do for you.