CONSUMERS ARE OWED A DUTY OF CARE BY AN OCCUPIER OF PROPOERTY

Many cases that consumers file in the Court system are premises liability cases involving slips, slip and falls, falling shelves, criminal attacks in the store or in the parking lots which are foreseeable.

The reasoning for this is that corporations realize that having to deal with lawsuits from injured customers will costs the corporation less money even paying the lawyer fees, cots and the amount of any  judgments or settlements than it would cost  the corporation to make safety a priority.

Ever see the armoured trucks pulling up to the drugstores, grocery stores and big box stores? The store values what is important to the store!

The store will never pay two guards or high school kids to walk up and down the aisles and in the parking lot all day to look for “conditions which could reasonably cause injury to a customer or invitee on the property.” The cost of such employees is not justified because the presence of these people would be required every day the store is open. Security and safety can be expensive.

One of the common defenses with parking lot falls is “the frequency the customer has shopped in the store and walked in and out of the store and not fallen in the pothole.

Some cases, the consumer even “knows of the condition” but on this one occasion was distracted or just did not see it.” Stated differently, you are at fault because the condition is open and obvious and you already new it was there.

The defense lawyers will use a consumer’s truthful admission that the customer was aware of the pothole to have the judge terminate the consumer’s lawsuit because of his or her knowledge which would be equal to or superior to that of the landowner and he or she had a duty to guard against known perils.

In Florida even though any condition is open and obvious  the landowner or occupier is not discharged the defendants’ duty to maintain the property in a reasonably safe condition. The existence of a pothole in the parking lot is evidence of the landowner’s failure to inspect and maintain the parking. The pothole could not have development without negligent maintenance.

Any condition in the parking lot or in the store that needlessly endangers a customer is not a reasonably safe condition. In such situations the jury should be permitted to determine each party’s fault under the doctrine of comparative negligence.

The doctrine allows the jury to determine each party’s role in brining out the harms and losses which are suffered by the consumer.

Florida courts have long held that a landowner’s duty to warn is separate and distinct from the duty to maintain the premises in a reasonably safe condition.

Florida case law has consistently recognizes that the fact that a danger is open and obvious may operate to discharge a landowner’s duty to warn, but it does not discharge the duty to maintain the property in a reasonably safe condition

You should speak to you lawyer about any injury which was sustained on any business or commercial property or parking lot regarding what remedies you have available to you.