If you slip, fall, and hurt yourself in your apartment unit, you may feel as though you have nobody to blame but yourself, as this is your personal living space, after all. However, if you rent this unit, you may not necessarily be responsible for the posed hazard that prompted your accident. With that being said, please continue reading to learn whether you can file a claim if you slip and fall in your rented apartment and how an experienced St. Mary’s County slip and fall lawyer at The Dorsey Law Firm can analyze whether or not you have a solid case on your hands.
Can I file a claim if I slip and fall in my rented apartment?
When determining your eligibility for a slip and fall accident claim, you must first consider Maryland’s enforced landlord-tenant laws. Specifically, landlords have a duty of care to ensure that their rental properties remain in a safe condition. This includes the individual apartment units and common areas such as hallways, stairwells, and sidewalks.
And so, your landlord should identify and repair potential hazards within a reasonable timeframe. In the meantime, they should uphold their duty to warn their tenants about these hazards and block off access and traffic flow through these areas.
And so, your grounds for a civil claim may be valid if, say, you slip and fall due to a loose or uneven floorboard within your apartment unit. Or if you slip and fall due to a loose or missing handrail in the apartment complex’s public stairwells.
Is it possible I’m at fault for my slip and fall accident?
In short, pursuing a lawsuit against your landlord may not go over well with them. That is, they may try to turn the blame around on you.
If your slip and fall accident took place in your apartment unit, an important element for you to establish in your claim is that you file an official report of the hazard with your landlord. Otherwise, they may argue that they could not have reasonably known its existence if it resided in your private dwelling space.
And if it happened in a common area, you must prove that you exercised caution and/or that there was no way of safely avoiding it. Going back to the stairwell example, you may claim that no warning signage that the handrail was loose. Or, the elevator was shut down, and you had no other way to exit the apartment complex except using the stairwell with the missing handrail.
Remember that Maryland follows the contributory negligence law. Meaning that it is much more difficult to win a civil claim if there is even a one percent possibility that you had a part in your accident event.
Before entering these proceedings, you should have already hired a skilled Leonardtown personal injury lawyer to represent you. So, if you have not done so already, please get in touch with The Dorsey Law Firm today.
