The Necessity Of Premises Liability
Michael Babboni
Premises Liability
The world can be a dangerous place, and people are sometimes surprisingly fragile. There is a wide variety of places and activities that most people consider safe or harmless, but this is only because of consistently applied safety regulations and inspections. Premises liability or “slip and fall” laws often carry a bad reputation because some people choose to abuse the system, but despite this fact property owners and business operators continue to have an obligation to keep their guests, customers, and residents safe. Premises liability laws are simply the means to enforce this obligation.Here are a few examples of what it means to keep your home or workplace safe:
Gardens And Parks
Nature is very often an unpredictable and uncontrollable force. A park owner can’t decide when it rains or how often, and he or she can’t control the humidity or predict how many mosquitoes will show up on a given day. However, there are some things which a person can predict and protect against.
For instance, the trees in a cultivated garden or park need regular inspections and trimmings to make sure they don’t overwhelm any power lines and to remove any dead limbs before they get the chance to rot away and fall on an unwary visitor. This sort of proactive maintenance is too expensive to consider in a true forest, even if it is part of a park, but even so the staff needs to make sure that the trails and roads are clear of limbs, trees, and fallen rocks.
Not only does this clearance maintain access for the disabled, the elderly, and anyone else unable to climb around the obstruction, but it also allows emergency services to reach every part of the park. If a park operator doesn’t clear an obstruction within a reasonable amount of time after finding out about it, then he or she may be found liable for any injuries or wrongful deaths that happen if it causes a delay in an emergency response.
Private Residences
Individual homes generally aren’t held to the same standards as businesses or other places where the public has free access, but nevertheless there are certain standards that everyone must observe.
As an example, according to Florida law you must lock up all your loaded firearms so long as there’s a reasonable chance that a minor could find and use the gun without adult supervision. It’s also probably a good idea to keep any firearms you don’t need for home defense unloaded with their ammunition stored elsewhere – even if you follow the letter of the law, a civil jury could find you liable if you don’t exercise reasonable care to ensure that it’s not too easy for a minor to load an unloaded gun.
In fact, homeowners are expected to take a lot of reasonable care when it comes to babies and young children. If you don’t have any children and you aren’t expecting any to visit, then you don’t need to childproof your residence, but if that changes then you need to do a lot of things. This includes keeping choking hazards and poisonous chemicals out of a child’s reach, closing off steep staircases and dangerous machines unless the child is old enough to stay safe around such things, and avoiding building any sort of precarious stack which might fall over and injure someone. The last piece of advice applies when adults are around, too, but it generally takes much less weight to hurt a child.
The world can be a dangerous place, but by following safety procedures and maintaining things properly, that danger can be kept at bay and nearly forgotten. It should not be wholly forgotten, however, as true safety requires constant effort.
If you live or work in the St. Petersburg, Florida area and you believe that you have suffered an injury or a loved one has died because of poor maintenance or a lack of reasonable caution, then you should contact the St. Pete Lawyer office today and arrange a free consultation. I have over 27 years of experience serving the people of St. Petersburg in the field of personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits, and I will do my best to make sure you get the settlement you deserve.