If you live in an apartment in Scranton, Pennsylvania, you may have experienced or witnessed a slip and fall accident on the exterior stairs of your building. But, who is responsible for your medical bills, lost wages and other damages if you fall down the exterior stairs of your apartment?
Reasonably safe conditions
Landlords must either repair unsafe conditions or warn of any dangerous condition that they either knew or should have known about on their property. If a landlord fails to uphold that duty, and someone is injured as a result, that landlord can be held liable for this victim’s damages. However, not every injury is compensable, but for those claims that are compensable, they are called premises liability claims.
How to prove a premises liability claim in Pennsylvania
To prove a premises liability claim in Pennsylvania, you must establish four elements. First, you must prove that the landlord owed you a duty. In other words, you need to show that you were not a trespasser. Next, you must show that the landlord breached that duty of care, it caused you an injury and that injury caused you damages.
If I fall down the exterior stairs, is my landlord responsible?
Perhaps. Your landlord owes you the highest duty. They had a duty to maintain the staircase or warn you if it was unsafe. As such, if you fell on an exterior staircase, which is presumably a common area, due to the negligence of the landlord (the stairs were unsafe), then you may be able to hold your landlord responsible. But, you will still need to be able to prove all the elements of your Pennsylvania premises liability claim.