Award Winning Alberta Slip and Fall Lawyers

If you slipped or tripped on public property, it is important to contact a lawyer in a timely manner for advice on how to proceed. Some public property, such as hospitals or schools, may not have any special laws or rules that differentiate them legally from other premises occupiers. Some public property, such as municipalities, do. These special rules often involve reporting requirements – essentially telling the municipality about the slip or trip. These reporting requirements have deadlines measured in weeks rather than years and must be acted on quickly. If you have tripped or slipped on public property in Calgary, you can call one of our slip-and-fall accident lawyers for a free consultation.

There are time limits for bringing slip and fall claims. The general time limit that applies to the majority of claims is two years, as set out in the Limitations Act, RSA 2000, c L-12. There are exceptions to this time limit, including for minors or people with a legal disability. There are also other time limits that may apply, such as notice provisions to be provided to a municipality if the slip and fall occurred on its property.

A strong slip-and-fall case has the following legal elements: a duty of care, breach of duty, causation of injury or damage, and substantial damages. A duty of care is owed by a premises occupier to users of the premises. A breach of that duty occurs when the premises is in a hazardous state that should have been prevented or fixed by the occupier. Causation is a logical connection between the hazard and your slip and fall – for example, the presence of ice caused you to slip. Substantial damages in a personal injury claim refer primarily to pain and suffering, wage loss, out-of-pocket expenses, or expected care costs.

Compensation, or damages, are determined by dividing your case up into segments known as heads of damage. This includes specific quantification of:

• Pain and suffering;
• Past wage loss;
• Future wage loss;
• Out-of-pocket expenses;
• Expected future care;
• Loss of housekeeping capacity; and
• An in-trust claim for those who went above and beyond to care for you in your time of need.

Slip and fall accidents can result in orthopedic injuries such as broken bones or torn ligaments. Even without a broken bone, slip and fall accidents can cause back pain or neck pain, which sometimes becomes chronic. People can hit their head in a slip-and-fall accident and sustain a concussion or mild traumatic brain injury. Slip and fall accidents can also result in spinal cord injuries.

Negligence is a general legal term that was developed under common law to capture the duty of care that people owe to those who might reasonably foreseeably be injured by their actions. In slip and fall claims, we often deal with liability under the Occupiers’ Liability Act, RSA 2000. The duties created by both the common law of negligence and the Act are very similar and require an occupier to take reasonable care to make sure the premises are safe for visitors. If a visitor slips and falls because the occupier failed in this duty, the occupier is negligent.

The legal analysis is the same for a slip and fall and a trip and fall accident. The difference is the mechanic of the fall and often the type of offending hazard. For example, you are more likely to slip on ice than on a bunched-up carpet, and you are more likely to trip on a bunched-up carpet than on ice. The key to both types of cases is whether the premises were in a hazardous condition and whether that hazardous condition caused you to fall.

Both liability and damages impact the compensation for a slip and fall. Liability refers to fault. A slip and fall accident is a fault-based accident, which means the occupier must be at fault for you to get compensation. In a settlement, the parties will assess the risk of fault being found. In some cases, it is clear that there is a liability. In some cases, it is clear that there is not. Many cases fall into the gray area in the middle. How injured you are and how it affects the quantum of your damages also impacts your compensation. The bigger the damages, all else being equal, the bigger the settlement.