What steps should I take if I’ve been injured in a slip-and-fall accident?

Well, that’s a great question. Unfortunately, most of us who’ve been injured don’t have the presence of mind to think in terms of preserving our claim. We’re more interested in dealing with the injury, and that’s just common sense. However, it is very, very important to be able to demonstrate that there was a defective condition that caused this problem. Photographs of that condition taken as soon as possible after the incident under conditions which are as similar as possible. The shadowing should be the same, the lighting should be the same. The condition shouldn’t have been changed or fixed, so that you can show what the condition was that caused the problem. That’s critical to any case where you’re bringing in a claim for a slip-and-fall or a trip-and-fall incident. So, that’s something that should be done as soon as possible.

Other than that, you want to put the property owner on notice relatively quickly. You want to get your injuries dealt with, so getting appropriate medical care and treatment and having your injuries documented and also taken care of by appropriate medical practitioners, are the steps that you want to do as soon as possible. And then, of course, getting an attorney so that the claim process can get started before the condition is changed or evidence is concealed is pretty critical. Sometimes, there may be video and you want to make sure that that video is preserved, and there’s no erasure of the video or recording over it or having it get lost. There are rules about spoliation. That’s the term for destroying evidence. And you want to make sure that you have a strongly-worded letter to the other side not to conceal or spoil evidence that might show what the condition was like that caused your injury.

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