Premises Liability in Austin, TX

Austin Premises Liability Attorney

Unsafe conditions like faulty wiring, improperly stacked merchandise and loose carpeting cause accidents resulting in serious injury. Businesses and property owners have a vital responsibility to create safe environments for their customers and visitors. This also includes walkways and parking lots, along with the people they employ. Employees are there to serve and at times, even protect individuals who visit their places of business. The lawyers at Dunk Law Firm, are experienced in the legal responsibilities and liabilities of businesses or organizations that fail to provide these safe conditions.

You can readily suffer injury through no fault of your own when you go to property such as a store, office building, motel or apartment complex. If the owner or occupier of the property knew of a hazardous condition or activity that resulted in your injury and failed to take timely, practical actions to protect you from it, you might be qualified to recover full compensation for all damage you have suffered. You should immediately get help from an experienced Austin premises liability lawyer.

Premises Liability Claims

• When you work with Dunk Law Firm, we will carefully assess the facts of your case. We will identify and pursue all of your legal options against the owner or occupant of the property where your injury occurred. Generally, the matters that we will focus on include:
• Duty-- Did you lawfully visit the property? For instance, were you a customer at a store, a guest at a hotel or a social guest at a person's residence? If so, the property owner or occupant owed a duty to exercise ordinary care to ensure that the property was safe for you. In other words, the owner or occupant needed to take reasonable measures to protect you from any dangerous condition on the property that the owner or occupier knew or reasonably should have known about and which you would not have been expected to discover on your own.
• Breach-- Did the owner or occupant neglect to fix the hazardous condition in a reasonable, timely way or, at least, to alert you about it? If so, the owner failed to fulfill the duty owed to you and could be held legally responsible for your injuries.
• Causation-- Did the carelessness of the owner or occupier contribute to the injuries that you sustained, or did something else-- perhaps your own actions-- cause the injuries?
• Damages-- Did you suffer actual harm because of the failure of the property owner or occupier to fulfill the duty owed to you? This means that you must show that you suffered genuine physical, psychological and/or financial harm.

It is always important to consider the ways a property owner or occupier will try to avoid liability. For instance, the owner or occupier might claim that you were a trespasser or suggest that you suffered injuries because you walked into an "open and obvious" hazard. The lawyers at Dunk Law Firm, will be ready to address those issues and protect your right to full and fair compensation.

Types of Premises Liability Claims 

A premises liability claim can arise in various circumstances. A few of the most common premises liability cases that our law firm handles include:

• Slip and falls-- These incidents usually occur due to wet and slippery floors, poor lighting, damaged and uneven sidewalks, torn or frayed carpeting and icy or snowy sidewalks and parking lots. In addition, a lot of falls occur due to defects such as broken stairways or handrails.
• Falling objects-- Many people suffer injuries when improperly stacked merchandise falls from store shelves or when workers drop tools, equipment and materials at construction sites.
• Contamination-- Landlords, particularly, expose tenants and their guests to harm when they fail to perform routine inspections and remedy concerns such as mold accumulation, lead paint, carbon monoxide or gas leaks. Usually, their negligence violates local building codes.
• Escalator and elevator accidents-- These incidents usually occur when building owners or tenants fail to regularly inspect and maintain elevators and escalators in stores, shopping centers and office complexes.
• Negligent security-- Numerous assaults take place in shopping centers, office buildings, apartments, hotels and motels because property owners and managers fail to protect guests from known security hazards, or they hire employees without an adequate criminal background check.
• Swimming pool accidents-- Drownings and near-drownings may occur if a property owner or occupier neglects to adequately maintain a pool and features such as slides and diving boards. Pool owners should also use a fence or locked gate to keep out children and protect against the foreseeable risk of an accident.

Compensation in a Premises Liability Lawsuit

Our goal at Dunk Law Firm, will be to secure maximum compensation for you in your premises liability claim. We know how hazardous property conditions can cause people to suffer severe, life-changing injuries such as traumatic brain injury, back and spine injuries, fractures, burns and soft tissue injuries. We will work hard to pursue damages on your behalf such as:

• Past and future medical expenses
• Lost wages (including lost future earning capacity)
• Pain and suffering
• Emotional distress
• Wrongful death damages (if you lost your loved one)
• Punitive damages

We will determine all sources of compensation for you and aggressively challenge any attempts by the property owner or occupant (or its insurance provider) to blame you for your injuries and deny or reduce the amount of your claim.

Our Austin Premises Liability Lawyers Are Ready to Help You

At Dunk Law Firm, we will move quickly to investigate your case. We work with skilled investigators that can document the scene of your accident, talk with witnesses and track down other evidence such as surveillance camera footage. We also regularly consult with experts who help us to determine exactly how a dangerous property condition caused an accident. A big part of our investigation may involve locating the identity of the property owner or person who was otherwise in control of the premises where you or a loved one was hurt.