What Happens if You're Injured on Someone Else's Property?

If you are injured on someone else's property, the property owner may be financially responsible for your losses.

Through a premises liability claim, your attorney can seek compensation for your medical bills, pain and suffering, and any other damages that you incur as a result.

Your ability to recover money damages for your injuries depends upon the facts of your case, but a competent premises liability attorney can review the facts of your case and advise you of your options free of charge. To discuss your case with our Dallas attorneys today, call (214) 651-6100 or email us using the contact form on this page.

Who's responsible?

The owner of property is not always responsible for injuries you incur on his/her land/property. The law states that they are only responsible if they owed you a duty to protect you from harm, and then failed in that duty resulting in an injury. What many people do not understand is that everyone, even trespassers, are owed at least some duty of case by the property owner.

If your own negligence was the cause of the personal injury and the conditions of the premises didn't contribute at all, you may not have an actionable case, but do not attempt to make this determination on your own. Instead, speak to a personal injury lawyer and ask for their professional opinion during your free consultation.

What does the law say?

One major factor that determines whether the property owner is responsible for your injury is your visitor status. There are three possible groups you could fall into. You could potentially be an invitee, a licensee or a trespasser on the property. Your legal rights vary dramatically depending on which of these groups you fall into.

Invitees are people who the land owner invited to come on to the land—even indirectly—to do business with the land owner or for a purpose designed to benefit the land owner (e.g., customer in a store). If you were an invitee, the land owner has a duty to protect you from unreasonable known risks by eliminating the risks or warning you about them. If they did not protect you from risk and you hurt yourself, they can be held liable.

Licensees are people invited onto the land for non-commercial reasons. If you go and visit a friend after being invited to their home, you are a licensee. If you are a licensee, you can only recover for injuries on the landowners' premises if they knew about the dangerous condition that caused your injury, didn't exercise reasonable care in correcting the dangerous condition or warned you about it, and you had no reason to know about the dangerous condition.

Trespassers have no permission to enter and are going on to the land for their own purpose alone. Typically, the land owner has almost no duty to exercise any care to protect your well-being other than the fact that they are not allowed to "booby trap" their premises. In cases involving child trespassers, the land owner may still be held liable under the attractive nuisance doctrine.

Not sure if you have a case? Call us!

If you've hurt yourself while on someone else's property, understand that you have rights. The Dallas attorneys at Rasansky Law Firm only represent victims, and we're happy to review the facts of your case free of charge. Contact us today at (214) 651-6100 or fill out the contact form on this page to learn how we can help.