South Florida Injury Lawyers Blog
A critical element of any Florida slip-and-fall injury lawsuit is establishing actual or constructive knowledge.
Florida’s slip-and-fall statute, F.S. 768.0755, requires that if a person slips and suffers injury in the fall on a transitory foreign substance in a business establishment, that person must first prove the business had actual or constructive knowledge of the hazard and therefore had a duty to actively remedy it. Actual knowledge could be shown if the business created the condition or if a staffer or manager was informed directly of the floor’s condition at that time and location. Constructive knowledge is a bit trickier. It is shown by proving the condition existed for such a length of time that the business establishment should have learned of it in the exercise of ordinary care OR that the condition occurred with regularity and was thus foreseeable.
Indiana has a similar proof burden requirement in these premises liability cases, and this issue arose in a recent case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Continue reading →