Articles Tagged with premises liability

As the end of the school year approaches and people plan vacations in Encinitas and throughout Southern California, it is important to understand the types of injury risks that exist for guests of all ages and the ways in which hotels, motels, and other resorts or vacation rentals can be liable in the event of an injury. From harm caused by negligent maintenance of the premises to harm from inadequate security, there is a range of hazards that exist at hotels and motels. In many cases, the business is liable for injuries that happen to guests, and an experienced Encinitas hotel injury attorney can speak with you about your options for filing a claim. In the meantime, we can give you more information that will be helpful as you think about spring and summer vacation plans.

Hotels Owe a Duty of Care to Guests and Restaurant Patrons

Hotels and motels owe a duty of care to their guests who are staying overnight on the premises and even to patrons who are visiting the hotel for only an hour or two for dinner in the hotel restaurant or for a spa treatment. When hotels fail to ensure that their property is reasonably safe and when they fail to take reasonable steps to avoid harm, they can be liable for injuries that occur.

When you are staying at a hotel or motel in Rancho Bernardo, you should not have to worry about getting hurt in an accident because of the hotel’s negligence or because the hotel or motel is using a defective product in guest rooms or common areas. Yet hotel and motel injuries occur with some frequency, and guests can suffer serious and even life-threatening harm. If you got hurt while staying at a hotel or motel in Southern California, you should get in touch with a Rancho Bernardo hotel injury attorney to find out more about filing a claim for financial compensation. In the meantime, the following are some of the most common types of injuries that guests sustain at hotels and motels.

Slips, Trips, and Falls

At a hotel or motel, slips, trips, and falls can occur in various places and under a variety of circumstances. Often, a hotel or motel may be liable if a slip, trip, or fall occurred because of a liquid spill on the premises, a damaged area of flooring that went unrepaired, the presence of tripping hazards in common walkways, or a lack of lighting in areas where slips and falls could occur.

Nobody plans to slip and fall when they are out to dinner in Poway or walking on a sidewalk for leisure or exercise. Yet slips, trips, and falls can happen almost anywhere in Southern California. While pedestrians can sometimes bear responsibility themselves for injuries sustained in a slip and fall, many slips and falls happen because a person who owns or rents property has been negligent in maintaining that property. Negligence can take many different forms, from failing to clean up a liquid spill on the floor to failing to repair or warn people about torn carpeting that poses a tripping hazard. What should you do if you slipped and fell in Poway? Consider the following steps.

Photograph the Area Where the Slip and Fell Occurred

First, take photographs of the area where the slip and fall occurred. In particular, be sure to document the hazard on the premises that caused you to slip, trip, or fall. That hazard might be a liquid spill, rough flooring, torn or damaged carpeting, or an area where lights were not working properly.

While most of us do not think about the risks of getting hurt when we step into an elevator or onto an escalator in Escondido, it is important to know that escalators and elevators can actually cause serious and fatal injuries in many different circumstances. Elevator and escalator accidents can be caused by many different factors, and people can sustain various types of injuries. Depending upon the cause of the elevator or escalator accident, and whether or not the injured person was working at the time of the elevator or escalator accident, multiple parties may be liable for injuries and various routes to compensation may exist. What do you ultimately need to know about these types of accidents and injuries? The following are some of the top things to know about escalator and elevator injuries in Escondido.

Elevator and Escalator Accidents Have Many Different Causes

There are many different causes for elevator and escalator accidents and injuries, such as:

Hotel and motel negligence in Vista can take many different forms in California, including negligent security measures that result in assaults or other acts of violence on hotel or motel premises. When a hotel or motel owner does not provide adequate security to customers on the premises, the hotel or motel ultimately may be liable for injuries resulting from a third party’s violent acts. To be clear, the injury victim may be eligible to hold a hotel or motel liable for violence perpetrated by a third party by filing a negligent security claim. The following are five things to know about hotel negligence and assaults in Vista.

  1. Negligent Security Claims are Personal Injury Lawsuits

Negligent security claims filed against hotels and motels are types of personal injury lawsuits. As such, the statute of limitations for most other types of personal injury cases will apply.

During the holiday season in Poway, many families travel to Southern California for vacations while others travel to other parts of the country to visit family members or friends. When you are staying in a hotel or motel for the holidays, it is important to understand potential hazards and injury risks in these spaces and to take precautions. Our experienced Poway hotel injury attorneys have tips for you to avoid accidents and injuries at hotels and motels over the holidays. 

Watch Kids Around the Pool Area

If you are staying at a hotel or motel with a pool, it may be tempting to say “yes” when your kids ask if they can go down to the pool on their own. Drowning accidents are much too common at hotels and motels across the country, and most hotels do not have lifeguards on duty who can provide any kind of supervision. Even if you have teenagers, it is important to take precautions and to supervise your children while they are swimming.

While grocery stores or supermarkets in Oceanside, California are a required weekly stop for most individuals and families, these are also retail establishments where serious accidents and injuries can occur. Although many injuries that happen at supermarkets result from slips and falls, grocery stores can also be places where struck-by injuries occur when products fall off a shelf unexpectedly, or where other types of premises liability accidents and motor vehicle collisions can occur. In many instances, the retail establishment is liable for injuries that occur on the property. Our experienced Oceanside personal injury lawyers want to tell you more about different types of slip, trip, and fall accidents that occur frequently in supermarkets in Southern California. 

Liquid Spills and Oceanside Slips and Falls

Liquid spills are a common cause of slips and falls in grocery stores throughout Southern California. It is often easy for liquid spills to occur when a customer accidentally knocks a jar off a shelf, and a liquid ends up spilling in the grocery aisle. If these kinds of liquid spills—of sodas, cooking oils, sauces, dressings—are not quickly cleaned up, a shopper might not even realize the floor is slick and can slip and fall.

Whether you have traveled to Escondido from a state far from California or you are a California resident and have simply planned a weekend trip to Southern California to spend time at the beach with your family, keep in mind that serious and deadly injuries can happen at hotels. While you might be prepared for the possibility of a car crash while you are traveling on the freeway, and although you may be taking precautions to prevent a drowning accident at the beach, you should know that hotels and motels can be dangerous places, too. When hotel or motel negligence results in a serious personal injury, you may be able to file a claim for financial compensation with assistance from an Escondido personal injury lawyer. In the meantime, the following are three things to know about hotel injuries in Escondido. 

Hotel Negligence Can Result in Many Types of Injuries

There are many different types of injuries that can result from hotel or motel negligence. For example, you or your child might sustain a serious injury as a result of a drowning accident near an unattended hotel or motel pool. Or you or another guest might sustain a serious injury in a slip and fall accident resulting from damaged flooring or a broken outdoor light that the hotel maintenance staff failed to replace. Slips and falls at hotels and motels can also occur in breakfast areas, at bars, and around pool decks due to liquid spills. At the same time, hotels may also be responsible for third-party assaults that happen because of negligent security—such as a hotel’s failure to repair a damaged door lock or window in your room. 

Hotel and motel hot tubs in Vista can pose a wide variety of risks to guests, from injuries caused by slips and falls around the hot tub to burn injury risks to drowning accident hazards for younger children or intoxicated guests. Yet it can be difficult to know whether an injury you sustained in or around a Vista hotel hot tub was the result of the hotel’s negligence, and thus whether you may be eligible to file a personal injury lawsuit. A recent hot tub accident lawsuit in California reported in Courtroom View Network emphasizes that these cases can be complicated, and it is essential to have an experienced Vista personal injury lawyer on your side. 

Recent Hotel Hot Tub Accident Lawsuit in California

A parent recently filed a lawsuit against a Howard Johnson hotel in California, according to the Courtroom View Network, after her daughter suffered a serious traumatic brain injury (TBI) in a hotel hot tub accident. The case involved the child’s near-drowning, and the mother alleged that the hotel was negligent because its hot tub was “too easily accessible for children,” and because “the hotel didn’t take adequate safety precautions to protect children playing in the facility.” The hotel argued that the plaintiff’s failure to supervise her daughter was actually the cause of the TBI the child sustained in the hot tub. The jury agreed with the hotel, and the case ultimately ended in a settlement, but it makes clear that the hotel likely would have been responsible if the circumstances were slightly different.

If you travel by yourself or with your family and book a room at a hotel or motel in San Diego County, what does that hotel owe you when it comes to your health and safety? Generally speaking, hotels and motels owe a duty of care to customers who are staying in the rooms. This duty of care means that the hotel needs to take whatever steps a reasonable person would take to ensure that customers are not exposed to unreasonable risks of injury or illness while staying on the property. Given that we are now living in the era of the coronavirus, it will be particularly important for hotels and motels to provide guests with appropriate safety and health precautions, and that they warn guests about potential hazards on the property. 

There are many different kinds of ways in which hotels and motels can be liable for guest injuries. The following are some examples of common hotel and motel negligence claims.

Slips, Trips, and Falls on Hotel Property

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