Slip/Trip and Fall Cases

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Phil Chanfrau

I have had a run of clients in the last few weeks all with slip and fall cases. I have not written any blogs about these types of cases before so this will be new.

What does it take to have a good slip and fall claim?  This is a short description:

  1. The person in charge of the place where the slip happened must either have caused the dangerous, unsafe condition, or
  2. had adequate time to discover and fix the danger regardless of who caused it, and failed to discover it, and
  3. failed to correct the danger or warn about the danger.

Let me give you a couple of examples of good cases I have handled meeting the litmus test above:

  1. Trip and fall at Volusia Mall.  Mall hired a painting crew to re-blacktop the parking lot. In so doing, the crew used nails and string  to help paint the yellow parking  stripes, and forgot to remove the nails when they were done.  RESULT:  client tripped on a nail while crossing the parking lot and had a bad fall.
  2. Slip and fall at grocery store:  Store employee discovers a puddle of milk on the floor and leaves the puddle unattended to go get a Warning sign.  While he was away a customer comes around an aisle and slips in the milk.
  3. Slip and fall at Mall:  Roof leaks every time it rains.  Rain drips from ceiling tiles to floor below and puddles.  Mall knows of leaking roof, and knows about puddles when it rains, and fails to fix the leak or put out warning signs.  Customer slips in the puddled water and falls sustaining a head injury.

So, if you have had a bad fall and wanted to know whether the property owner is at fault, here are some good rules of law for you know about!  An experienced personal injury lawyer can explain it in a few minutes.

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Teaching Kids to Drink and Drive? Very Stupid

Posted on September 11, 2009 by Phil Chanfrau

Every so often I have a client who asks me about Open House parties where teenagers are provided with adult supervision and free booze.  Unfortunately, this happens in just about every community once every couple of years and the results are not pretty.

Today's front page of the St. Augustine Record contains a sad story about a Party Mom who provided booze at her home at some teen age parties earlier this year.   She is facing criminal charges for manslaughter because two of them were killed after they left her house while they were driving.  I know there is usually two sides to every story, but this was an incredibly stupid act and was clearly responsible for the death of two teenagers.

In Florida it is illegal for anyone (except at a religious function) to provide underage kids with booze.  It is no defense to say that the kids shouldn't have drank the booze.  That is what her criminal defense attorney is claiming in the manslaughter case. That may also be what the insurance company lawyer tries to argue if she gets sued for wrongful death of the two kids. The Florida Alcohol Defense statute deprives an injured plaintiff from his right to recover damages if he was more than 50% at fault. Does that also apply to kids?

A homeowner usually has to carry insurance on their house to get a mortgage loan.  The homeowner's insurance would provide coverage (insurance) for this type of negligence by the Party Mom.

There is an unanswered legal issue which is going to come up in the death case: whether the drinking of the minors can block a suit by their parents for wrongful death? The "Open house party"statute is designed to protect minors from harm that could result from consumption of alcohol or drugs by those who are too immature to appreciate potential consequences. Newsome v. Haffner, 710 So.2d 184, (Fla. 1st DCA 1998) dealt with an open house party at which a minor was killed with a firearm. His parents were allowed to make a claim for wrongful death despite his alleged negligence.

The bottom line is whether kids are subject to the Alcohol Defense statute.   My Prediction: NO!  Florida's Open House Party statute is designed to protect a particular class of people: minors.  It is intended to protect them from the evils of alcohol.  There is likely going to be a need for a Court to decide which law trumps: The Alcohol Defense law, which penalizes everyone from drinking, or the Open House Statute, which protects underage minors. 

I think the courts will find that the Open House Statute prevails.  If the Florida legislature wanted to the Alcohol Defense statute to apply to minors too, it could easily have written the Act differently to make that clear.

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