Notice in Chattanooga slip and fall cases means that the property owner knew or should have known that the dangerous condition existed on their property. Where notice comes into play is where something temporarily on the property causes the injury like something slippery spilled on the floor. Determining notice requires knowing how long the hazard has been there, whether there have been reasonable inspections if the owner had time to clean it up or warn the individual that was on the premises. It is important to contact a distinguished slip and fall attorney for any injuries sustained due to the inaction of another party.
Difference from Constructive Notice
Constructive notice contrasts with actual notice in Chattanooga slip and fall cases. Actual notice is notice that the property owner has real knowledge of the dangerous condition. Constructive notice means the property owner should have known and has no excuse for not knowing of the dangerous condition.
Even if an attorney cannot prove that an owner or employee actually saw a spill occur, they can prove constructive notice by proving how long the spill has been on the floor. Whereas actual notice would be that one of the owner’s employees spilled it, and told someone who forgot to clean it up. One of the person’s customers spilled it and stayed there for a long time and the person never found it, that is constructive notice.
Impact on a Slip and Fall Case
The injured person loses if notice in Chattanooga slip and fall cases cannot be proven. The injured person has to prove that the owner knew or should have known of the dangerous condition and if the injured person cannot prove that the owner had that notice of the dangerous condition, the person cannot win the case. By owner it means whoever controls the property: it could be a tenant, it could be somebody who is employed there, it can be a lot of different entities involved.
Reasonable Duty of a Landlord
A landlord has a reasonable duty to provide a secure property and to protect their tenants from criminal threats on the property. If there have been repeated problems with criminal behavior on or near property, then the landlord or the store owner or whatever the case may be has a duty to try to alleviate those threats. To avoid notice in Chattanooga slip and fall cases, the owner needs to take steps to keep those problems from harming their tenants or customers.
Being a Comparative Negligence Jurisdiction
Chattanooga and all of Tennessee is a comparative negligence or comparative fault jurisdiction. That means that if a person gets hurt because of somebody else’s negligence, but the injured person was also negligent, then the jury compares the negligence of the defendant with the negligence of the person who got hurt. The person who got hurt is only able to recover the percentage of their damages in proportion to the other person’s fault, unless the person who got hurt is 50 percent or more at fault. If the injury is more the owner’s fault than the individual’s, they can recover the portion of damages equal to the amount that is the owner’s fault.
If a person was not paying perfectly good attention, they can still recover for notice in Chattanooga slip and fall cases. It means that just because the person was not perfectly attentive to their own safety and the person got hurt that the person who caused the dangerous condition does not have to pay anything. It saves a lot of cases because, a lot of times, there is some degree of responsibility on both the person who gets hurt and the person in control of the property.