Most people know that if they are injured inside of a store or business, due to some negligence of the company, that they can bring a lawsuit to recover for their damages, but who is responsible when the injury happens outside of the store or restaurant. Provided the injury occurred in a parking lot or on property belonging to the store or restaurant, the claim operates the same way. Businesses have a responsibility to keep their premises safe for customers, both inside and out. However, not all injuries that occur in parking lots will provide standing to bring a personal injury lawsuit. We will explore this more below.
What are Common Parking Lot Injuries?
The most common injuries sustained in parking lots are slip-and-fall accidents. These can occur in inclement weather conditions due to ice or snow on the ground. They can also occur if the parking lot is uneven, the pavement damaged, or due to untreated potholes or other possible hazards, such as oil spills. Other injuries may be sustained in parking lots due to robberies, or blind corners where cars entering the parking lot cannot see pedestrians walking out of it. In some cases, the design or a parking lot or parking garage or the way traffic is instructed to flow, may make a specific type of accident very likely. All of these, under certain circumstances, can result in liability for the business.
When Can I Sue for a Parking Lot Injury?
Not all injuries sustained in a parking lot give rise to a personal injury claim. In order to have standing to bring a lawsuit, the business must have been negligent in some way that contributed to or caused your injury. These cases fall under premises liability law, and whether the store or restaurant will be held liable depends on whether the accident was something that could have been foreseen, and whether they took any action to try and warn of the danger or remedy it. For instance, if you simply tripped and fell in the parking lot, this kind of accident could happen anywhere. Provided there were no contributing factors, like a pothole or hazard neglected by the business, there will be no liability. However, if there were hazards in the parking lot that the store knew or should have known about and failed to warn of or fix and you were injured because of them, then the business can be held legally accountable. This is true also in cases where multiple accidents of the same kind have occurred in a business’ parking lot. In these situations, the knowledge that an accident has happened multiple times is considered to be proof that the business should have known of the risk and warned of it or taken action to fix it.
Schedule a Consultation with the O’Donnell Law Offices
If you have suffered an injury in a Pennsylvania parking lot that was not your fault, our experienced personal injury attorneys want to hear from you. Schedule a free initial consultation with the personal injury attorneys at the O’Donnell Law Offices serving clients in Kingston, Wilkes Barre, Hazleton and Pittston at 570-821-5717 or online today. There is no fee or costs until we win your case.