A slip and fall can change your day, your health, and your finances in seconds. One moment you’re walking through a store, parking lot, or apartment complex in Macon. The next, you’re dealing with pain, medical bills, and questions about what just happened.
Slip and fall injuries are often caused by unsafe property conditions that should have been fixed or clearly warned about. If you were hurt because a property owner failed to keep their space reasonably safe, a Macon slip and fall lawyer at Brodie Law Group can help you understand your options and protect your injury claim. You can also start with our Macon personal injury lawyer page to learn how these cases fit into broader injury claims.
Call us today at (478) 239-2780 to discuss your case.
Can slip and fall accidents really cause serious injuries? Slip and fall accidents are more common than you might think. Slip and fall accidents are one of the leading causes of emergency room visits in Georgia and the United States.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Georgia Department of Health, falls are the leading cause of injury death among those who were 65 and older. In 2021, there were 44,686 deaths from falls across the United States. Slip and falls also account for the third leading cause of accidental injury in the United States for ages 1-44. Falls also represent the leading cause of traumatic brain injuries across Georgia.
Despite the statistics related to the frequency of slip and fall accidents above, slip and fall cases are very difficult cases from the beginning as insurance companies tend to place blame on the accident victims and therefore undervalue a victim’s damages or accuse accident victims of exaggerating their injuries. That’s why it’s important to have a slip and fall injury attorney on your side to fight for the full compensation that you deserve for your physical injuries, lost wages, and medical expenses.
Under Georgia law, an injured victim must establish the following:
Slip and fall accident cases typically involve a loss of balance on a substance or a structure. Under Georgia law there are two types of slip and fall categories:
Foreign substance cases involve slip and fall accidents on substances like water, liquids, oils, food particles, trash, debris, or rugs. Basically, these are items or substances that are not meant
to be on the property flooring and should be removed or cleaned up.
Static defects involve something that’s meant to be on the property, but it is in poor condition or not built to code, causing an unsafe condition.
For your slip and fall injury case to be successful, it is important to know what kind of hazard or condition caused your slip and fall. The reason is because the legal duty of care owed to prevent against the unwanted injury to a visitor or patron depends on the type of hazard.
If you’ve been in injured in a slip and fall accident the last thing you may be thinking is that you need to document the incident. To protect your claim and future damages, the injury lawyers at the Brodie Law Group suggest you act immediately whether your fall occurs in a grocery store, restaurant, or Macon Amphitheater.
Notify the property owner: Speak with the manager or property owner and tell them what happened. Get their name and contact information.
Take pictures and video: Get pictures and video of the scene and what caused your slip and fall injury before someone cleans it up. Also, take pictures and videos of your injuries.
Talk to witnesses: Look for people who saw the accident and anyone who saw what caused your fall and ask them for their contact information.
Get medical treatment: Go to the emergency room or urgent care after the accident. Many injuries may not have symptoms immediately and will get worse over time. It’s important to document your injury and show insurance companies that you were hurt
from the slip and fall.
While slip and fall accidents can happen anywhere, there are certain places where these accidents happen to occur more regularly in Macon. These places tend to be areas of high traffic like businesses and sports arenas. These places include:
In slip and fall cases involving spills or debris, property owners are not automatically responsible just because someone fell. The law looks at whether the owner took reasonable steps to find and fix hazards in a timely way.
Property owners and managers are expected to have reasonable inspection procedures in place. This means regularly checking floors and walkways for spills, food, liquids, or other hazards that could cause someone to slip. Timing matters because spills can happen quickly, especially in places like grocery stores and restaurants.
For example, a drink may be spilled by a customer or server and no one notices it right away. A property owner is not required to know about a spill the moment it happens. However, they are required to have a system in place to inspect the area often enough to catch problems before someone gets hurt.
To succeed in a slip and fall case involving a foreign substance, an injured person generally must show one of the following:
The property owner did not have reasonable inspection procedures in place, OR
The owner knew about the spill and had enough time to clean it up or warn people but failed to do so
These cases often come down to inspection records, surveillance video, and how long the hazard was present before the fall.
A static defect is a fixed hazard that does not move. Examples include broken steps, uneven flooring, loose handrails, potholes, or cracked sidewalks.
To win a static defect slip and fall case, you generally must prove two things:
The property owner knew or should have known the defect existed, AND
The owner’s knowledge was greater than yours
A property owner can have knowledge in two ways:
Actual knowledge: The owner or an employee knew about the hazard because they saw it, caused it, or someone reported it.
Constructive knowledge: The defect was there long enough that the owner should have discovered it with reasonable inspections, or the owner had notice because of past complaints or repeated problems.
Slip and fall cases often come down to one question: Who knew about the danger first?
Superior knowledge means the property owner knew, or should have known, about the dangerous defect and the injured person did not. If the owner had time to fix the problem or warn people and failed to do so, that can support a claim.
These cases are often proven with photos, maintenance records, witness statements, and surveillance video.
Slip and fall cases can be hard because property owners and insurance companies often try to blame the injured person. They may claim the hazard was “open and obvious” or that you should have seen it and avoided it.
For example, if someone slips on spilled milk in a grocery store, the store may argue that a reasonable person would have noticed the spill and walked around it. They may use that argument to try to deny the claim or reduce how much they pay.
That is why the details matter. What did the area look like? Was there a warning sign? How long was the hazard there? Was the lighting poor? Was your view blocked by an aisle display or a crowd?
An experienced slip and fall lawyer in Macon can investigate what happened, gather evidence like photos and video, and push back when an insurance company tries to shift blame. A lawyer can also estimate what your case may be worth based on your injuries, your medical costs, and the impact the fall has had on your life.
Our Macon office is right off of I-75 at Exit 171 for Riverside Drive. Follow signs toward Sheraton Drive. Our office is at 4580 Sheraton Dr, next to Groome Transportation.
Brodie Law Group
Address: 4580 Sheraton Dr, Macon, GA 31210
Phone: (478) 239-2780
Have you been hurt in a slip and fall on someone else’s property? You may be able to recover money for medical bills, missed work, and the pain this injury has caused. Our team will review what happened, explain your options, and deal with the insurance company so you do not have to. Learn more about Brodie Law Group on our homepage, or call (478) 239-2780 today for a free case review.
