Slip and Fall Settlements? Why Fall Down Cases Are Hard to Settle.

Slip and Fall Settlements?Chicago injury lawyer Scott DeSalvo explains why slip and fall injury cases are harder than most people realize; and why they are harder to settle than most kinds of injury cases.

Hi guys. Slip and fall injury lawyer Scott DeSalvo here, and in today's video we're going to talk about slip and fall settlements, so stay tuned.

You know, obviously I'm an injury lawyer, so I have lots of friends who are injury lawyers screen slip and fall/fall down cases very carefully.

Why?

Because what's little known is that when you try, or you take a slip and fall case to trial, there's this laundry list of things you have to prove in front of a jury, and some of them are pretty tough to prove.

In a car crash case, all you have to prove is that the crash was the other guy's fault, and as a result, you sustained an injury, and then  show exactly what the injury is.  Not too complicated, though it  is not always easy.

But in fall down cases, you have to prove 6 different things.  I am not going to go into detail as to all of them, becase a couple of the topics are so complicated, they deserve an a book on their own.

That makes slip and fall cases some of the most difficult cases to win. In a normal injury case, all you have to prove is that somebody did something wrong to you, you got injured, and that your injuries relate to what they did wrong to you. That's true in a car accident case and most other kinds of injury cases.

But in a premises liability, which is what lawyers call a fall down case, there's this laundry list of six things we have to prove, and some of them are very difficult.

For example one of the things that you have to prove is that the thing that caused you to fall was unreasonably dangerous, and sometimes, believe it or not, that's sort of hard to prove.

If we're talking about a minor defect in a staircase or on floor, it's not hard to get at least one juror to look at a photo of it and say, "Well, heck, that's not that dangerous. It doesn't look that much different than problems I see in my own house, or what my floors or my stairs look like. That's not unreasonably dangerous."

And remember, if you can't prove all six of those things, you lose your case. In fact, it doesn't even get to a jury. If the judge believes you haven't proved all six things, your case gets directed out on summary judgment.

So, this is going to sound very self-serving, but I will tell you whether you hire me or you hire another lawyer who has lots of experience and really understands premises liability law, the number one thing that is going to make the difference between you recovering money or getting no money is hiring a good lawyering with experience,and will know about hgow to get the best slip and fall settlements.

I'm telling you, there are ways to handle fall down cases that most general injury lawyers who aren't experienced in premises liability don't even know about. There are ways to make the case about something else, and there are ways to plead the case that make proving your case much easier.  They've never read about it, they've never tried it, they've never studied it.

Make sure you get a lawyer, if you've been involved in a fall, who knows what they're doing.

If you talk to a lawyer and they ask you three or four questions, and they immediately reject your case, they may not be thinking creatively enough about your case.

I've been able to get substantial settlements for several clients in fall down cases that when I initially took the case, I was a little hesitant about. But it turns out that a good lawyering who knows how to screen a premises liability or fall down case can really turn a rough case that other lawyers turn down into a profitable case for the lawyer and a case where you end up with full compensation for your injuries.