Portland Slip and Fall Accident Lawyer

Portland property owners have to uphold certain duties to keep residents, patrons, and visitors safe on their premises. These owners must keep their properties in a safe condition, respond to hazards within a reasonable amount of time, and adequately warn visitors about potential dangers. Unfortunately, not all owners uphold this duty of care—leading to dangerous slip and fall accidents.

If you are injured in a slip and fall accident in Portland, you may have grounds for legal action—and the lawyers at DuBois Law Group can help. Our Portland attorneys can represent you in your claim against a negligent property owner, helping you recover the compensation you deserve.

Why Choose A Portland Slip and Fall Lawyer From DuBois Law Group?

• Our personal injury lawyers in Portland have a strong track record of successful personal injury settlements and verdicts. Over our years of operation, we have recovered millions of dollars on behalf of our clients—including $50 million over a five-year period.
• Our firm operates a separate medical department to help our clients receive the treatment they need. Our staff can request medical records, connect you with treatment, and recommend specialists, such as chiropractors and orthopedic surgeons.
• Our firm operates on a contingency fee basis. If we do not secure compensation in your case, you will not be charged legal fees. If your case is successful, we will take an agreed-upon percentage of your award as payment—limiting your out-of-pocket costs.

What Damages Are Available for Portland Slip and Fall Victims?

Slip and fall accidents often result in serious injuries that require extensive and sometimes long-term medical care, such as broken bones, spinal cord damage, neck, back, and even brain injury. As a result, you may need to take weeks or months to recover, suffer from serious pain, and grapple with the emotional impact of the injury. If there was a death involved, call a wrongful death lawyer in Portland as soon as possible.

Through a slip-and-fall lawsuit, however, you can hold negligent property owners accountable for these losses. You can recover compensation for the economic, or financial, losses you sustained in the accident, just ask a Portland premises liability lawyer. You can also secure damages for your non-economic pain and suffering. Common damages in Portland slip and fall claims include the following.

• Past and future medical expenses
• Property damage
• Lost wages
• Loss of future earnings
• Chronic pain
• Disability
• Loss of quality of life
• Rehabilitation and physical therapy
• Post-traumatic stress disorder
• Mobility equipment
• Depression and anxiety
• Emotional distress

How Do You Prove an Oregon Slip and Fall Lawsuit?

To prove a Portland slip and fall lawsuit, you will need to provide enough evidence to establish the property owner’s negligence for the accident. Specifically, you and your lawyer will need to establish four specific facts.

• The property owner owed you a duty of care to maintain safe premises, respond to hazards within a reasonable time frame, and adequately warn you of hazards on the property.
• The property owner breached his or her duty of care through a negligent act or failure to act.
• The breach of duty caused your slip and fall accident and resulting injuries.
• You sustained damages in the slip and fall accident that you can collect in your lawsuit.

For example, say that you are visiting a grocery store. An hour earlier, a patron dropped a bottle of water on the ground, creating a slippery surface. The grocery store owner walked past the spill multiple times and did not place a wet floor sign in the area. You then slip and fall on the spill while you are walking in the store, leading to a broken arm and bruised tailbone.

In this situation, the grocery store owner had a duty to warn visitors of the spill or clean it up, since it could pose a fall hazard. Because the owner had walked past the spill multiple times within an hour and did not clean it up or set up a warning sign, he breached his duty of care. Your accident would not have occurred if the owner had upheld his duty of care, which helps you establish causation.

You can use multiple pieces of evidence to prove each of these elements and your right to recovery. For example, surveillance footage, witness testimony, and photographs can prove a breach of care and causation. To prove the extent of your damages, you can use medical records, invoices, pay stubs, journal entries, etc., and submit them to your Portland personal injury attorney for evaluation.

How Does Comparative Negligence Affect Portland Slip and Fall Claims?

Although you may provide enough evidence to establish the property owner’s liability, he or she may claim that you are partially responsible for the accident. He or she may claim that you were not looking where you were walking and that the average person would have been able to avoid the hazard. The owner may also state that you were wearing inappropriate footwear, intentionally harmed yourself, or trespassing on his or her property.

If the court or insurance company accepts these claims, it may use this information as justification to deny your award. In a lawsuit, the court may apply Oregon’s comparative negligence rules, which reduce your settlement by the percentage of liability you allegedly share. If you are more than 50 percent responsible for the accident, the court may bar you from recovering compensation at all.

Say that you slipped on a bottle of water at the grocery store, but the owner claims that you were looking at your phone at the time of the accident and should have noticed the spill. The court assigns you 20 percent of the liability. If you ask for $40,000 in compensation, you will only be able to recover $32,000.

In these situations, it is important to have a quick-thinking slip and fall injury lawyer who can advocate for your right to compensation and protect you against allegations of shared fault. As soon as possible following your slip and fall accident, speak to an attorney at DuBois Law Group to discuss your legal options.

Contact A Portland Slip and Fall Attorney From DuBois Law Group

If you are injured in a slip-and-fall accident in Portland, you may have grounds for legal action. In these situations, trust the professionals at DuBois Law Group to fight for your right to maximum compensation and secure the outcome you deserve. Contact us today to schedule a free consultation and learn more about your next steps with one of our specialist lawyers. (503) 222-4411