New Haven Attorneys For Slip & Fall Injuries

Some people are too quick to blame themselves when they have a slip-and-fall injury. In fact, many of these accidents are caused by a dangerous condition on a business or private property. Property owners have a duty under Connecticut law to make their premises safe for normal and expected use.

The premises liability attorneys at Jacobs & Dow, LLC, in New Haven, Connecticut, investigate slip-and-fall accidents to determine if the property owners are liable for our clients’ injuries. Since 1947, we have helped people in Connecticut injured on dangerous premises to prove liability and secure fair and just compensation for their injuries.

Holding Property Owners Accountable For Negligence

When a property owner knows (or should know) about a dangerous condition on his premises and does nothing to protect people who come onto the property, the owner may be held liable for damages. The premises liability attorneys at our firm take slip-and-fall accident injuries seriously. We collect and preserve evidence, talk to witnesses, review medical records and investigate the causes of slip-and-fall and trip-and-fall accidents.

We handle cases involving all sorts of hazards, including the following: poorly lit stairwells in an apartment or office, slippery floors, falling debris at construction sites, exposed electrical wires, defective elevators, malfunctioning escalators, damaged pavement and potholes, worn stairs and missing handrails, ice or other slippery surfaces on sidewalks, and uncleared snow in parking lots.

Protecting Workers Through Third-Party Claims And Workers’ Compensation

If you are on the job and working on someone else’s property, and you slip and fall because of a dangerous condition on that person’s property or business, you may have a claim against the property owner. This is true even though you also have a “compensable injury” for workers’ compensation purposes. In this type of case, an injured worker may have two separate sources of compensation: a workers compensation claim against his or her employer; and a negligence lawsuit in civil court against the property owner who contributed to the injury. Here are some examples:

• An employee, working for a furniture store, delivered a heavy couch to a customer’s house and fell because the front step was weak and deteriorated. He sustained a back injury, received workers’ compensation benefits during his convalescence and recovered a lump sum settlement in a separate civil lawsuit from the insurance company of the property owner who failed to properly maintain the steps.
• An office worker, running an errand for her company, entered a copy shop where she slipped and fell on some toner spilled on the floor. She sued the copy shop for the negligently maintained floor and recovered a lump sum settlement from which her employer’s workers’ compensation insurance company was partly repaid for the weekly benefits she received during her medical treatment.
• A worker was leaving her job at the end of the day, walking to her car, when she slipped and fell on ice in the parking lot. She sued the landlord who rented space to her company and eventually recovered a settlement. In addition, since she was within the “going or coming” rule, she was also entitled to workers’ compensation benefits for her injuries.

By pursuing this kind of third-party personal injury action, our lawyers maximize the financial recovery for our clients. A civil negligence lawsuit provides compensation over and above the benefits available under workers’ compensation law, which are usually limited to the payment of medical bills and weekly benefits during medical treatment. By contrast, a third-party negligence lawsuit allows recovery for past and future pain and suffering, impairment of earning capacity and future medical treatment and disability. In a serious injury case, the settlements secured by our lawyers in these third-party cases are often very substantial.