Slipping and falling due to dangerous conditions on someone else’s property can cause you serious injury. If this happens to you, you can file a claim against the property owner and hold them legally accountable for the costs of your injuries.
This is known as a premises liability lawsuit and is based on the legal concept of negligence. Property owners have a legal duty to keep their premises safe from known hazards and reduce the chance of an accident that causes injury to guests or those they invite onto the property.
When property owners fail in this duty and a guest is injured, the property owner could be held liable for the guest’s damages.
Assumption of risk is a common defense used by property owners in slip and fall cases in Pennsylvania. Assumption of risk means that the property owner is arguing that they should not be held liable because you knowingly accepted the risk of being harmed by your actions.
How property owners argue assumption of risk
For example, perhaps a grocery store owner places a large sign outside the store warning shoppers to avoid walking in a certain area because it is slippery. You see the sign and walk in the area anyway and are injured. The grocery store owner may argue that you assumed the risk of injury because you deliberately ignored the sign and chose to walk on the slippery area.
Pennsylvania uses a modified comparative negligence standard in cases based on negligence. This means a court assigns a percentage of negligence to each party and lowers any damages awarded accordingly. If you are found to be 50% or more negligent, you could receive no damages at all.
To determine if you assumed the risk, the court would examine the obviousness of the dangerous condition and compare your actions to that of a hypothetical “reasonable person.”
In the above example, a court would decide if a reasonable person would read a sign warning guests not to walk in a certain area and decide not to walk there. If it is fair to say a reasonable person would have read the sign and chosen to not walk there, a court could find that you assumed the risk of injury.
Defending against assumption of risk
You have a better chance of succeeding against an assumption of risk defense if you can show that the dangerousness was not obvious to an average person. If the sign put up by the grocery store owner was small with tiny lettering and situated far away from the slippery surface, or the owner had not put up a sign at all, a court could find that the danger was not obvious to a reasonable person and you did not assume the risk of injury.
When you file a slip and fall claim, there is a good chance an assumption of risk defense will be used against you. Whether you assumed the risk depends on the unique facts of your case so it is important to have a solid understanding of how this defense applies to your situation.