Whenever you set foot on someone else’s property, you assume at least some risk of getting hurt by a dangerous property condition that neither you nor the property owner had any reasonable way of knowing about. That said, there are various scenarios under which a property owner can reasonably be expected to know about—and quickly fix—a hazardous condition on their land. In these scenarios, those owners may hold civil liability for any injuries those hazards cause to lawful visitors.
Commercial landowners, in particular, have a particularly broad “duty of care” in this regard. However, as any experienced attorney can tell you, proving such a landowner at fault for an accident can still be far from simple. Fortunately, you have support available from a Nashville commercial property premises liability lawyer at Ponce Law, who will fight tenaciously to get justice on your behalf in the form of comprehensive compensation for all your accident-related damages.
Every Tennessee property owner who allows visitors onto their land has a “duty of care” under state law to warn lawful visitors about hazards which they—the landowner—have direct knowledge of, as well as to block off or address those hazards reasonably soon after learning of them. Importantly, though, people who benefit financially from people visiting commercial property they own are liable both for hazards they have actual knowledge of and hazards they have “constructive knowledge” of.
A landowner has “constructive knowledge” of a hazard if they reasonably should know about the hazard through responsible property management and regular inspection of their land either personally or through a subordinate. As a Nashville premises liability attorney could explain, this means you can sometimes sue over an injury on commercial property caused by a hazard the landowner did not directly know about but reasonably should have addressed more quickly than they did—for instance, a leaking ice cooler spill left unmarked for several working hours.
One important caveat to liability based on “constructive knowledge” is that property owners generally are not liable for “open and obvious” hazards, meaning conditions that are so obviously dangerous that no reasonable person would get close enough to get hurt by them. Commercial landowners also may not be liable for injuries suffered by paying customers who voluntarily and expressly assumed a risk of injury—for example, by signing a liability waiver before using gym equipment.
Finally, even if a landowner is liable for a visitor’s injuries, any “comparative fault” the injured person holds for harming themselves through their own negligent behavior may be held against them as a proportional reduction from their final damage award, or even as a reason to deny them compensation altogether. Guidance from a seasoned lawyer can be vital to understanding and overcoming these kinds of roadblocks when pursuing a premises liability claim against a commercial property owner in Nashville.
Whether it happens in a retail store, at an amusement park, in a private fitness facility, or anywhere else you have to pay to enter or take products from, an accident on commercial property can be uniquely difficult to take effective legal action over. Between opposition from insurance companies and the restrictions placed on you by state law, you, unfortunately, will have slim odds of getting a favorable result if you try to pursue this sort of case alone.
Instead, you should contact a Nashville commercial property premises liability lawyer with a long history of fighting tirelessly for people like you all over Music City. Call Ponce Law today for a free consultation.
