Slip and Fall Injury–It was raining....whose fault?

Slip and Fall Injury–It was raining....whose fault?

Although I am a personal injury attorney, I say this a lot to people: sometimes things just happen, and even if people are injured, its just bad luck.   Is there always fault for every accident and every injury? NO.

However, in a recent case, a client was walking in the parking lot for our City Building. Yes, he knew it was raining. Yes, he knew that wet surfaces can be slippery.  So, he was trying to be careful. As he took only a few steps out from the covered area, his foot slipped out from under him, in a terrible fall. His body literally flew up. He describes it like an "old cartoon character slipping and catching air before falling."

He sat there stunned for a few minutes. He looked around and all of the ground surface looked the same. What had he slipped on? He had tried to be so careful.

He rested several days, hoping he’d feel better, but, only got worse. When he called me to meet him at the accident scene, he could barely walk and needed the assistance of a cane. That day, it was dry and sunny.

What had looked evenly covered because of the rain, looked much different when it was dry. (I post some pictures of the surface here--as it appears when dry). There are numerous large areas of patches where the non-skid surfacing had been worn off. Of course, when it was wet you couldn't really tell where the worn-out patches were. That’s when it all looks the same color and you can’t tell some of it has worn off.  This is how it looks when dry, (you can actually see the unsafe areas):

This is a very dangerous situation. The City obviously knew it was dangerously slippery there, and so it applied some non-slip coating. But, the City let it get very badly, and quite dangerously, worn out.  The worn-out patches are hard to see when its wet, making it even more dangerous. As a result, this unlucky gentlemen was severely injured. But was this particular case just bad luck?  NO.  It could have been avoided.  Thus, in this case it WAS someone's fault:  the City.

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