Common Mistakes in Slip And Fall Cases

Answer:

Mistakes we often see clients make, particularly in slip and fall cases, are these: One, they don’t go get medical care initially. They’re embarrassed that they fell in a public place. They minimize the hurt and they don’t go. If they don’t go, they don’t get well as if they had gone immediately. If they don’t go, people aren’t going to believe that they are hurt when they eventually do go. Always get your medical care because that’s the most important thing, whether you get a case or not.

Secondly, they dispose of things. When you slip it’s typically on some kind of fluid and it gets all over your clothes. Again, they’re embarrassed so when they get home, they go wash their clothes. Now we don’t have that evidence to show what they fell on.

Another mistake is they don’t get lawyers involved in these cases early on. We urge them to preserve those types of things, preserve the shoes you were wearing. Also, in this day and age of the smartphone, take a picture. Take a picture of where you fell and what you slipped on. It’s just snapping off a few pictures. You may be stunned and you may not be able to do that but do that because it helps. It’s preservation of evidence.

Lastly, tell the manager of the store that you fell. You may have fallen in a back corner or someplace where no one saw you fall. Report it. They are obligated to generate reports. It documents it. You remove the argument that no one saw you fall so how could you have fallen there.
Making mistakes doesn’t kill your case. It just makes it a little harder on the lawyer when those things happen and we lose evidence. If you get hurt, call us. We will navigate you through those issues as well as others.