If you were hurt by a dangerous condition on someone else’s property, a Miami slip and fall lawyer can help you hold the owner accountable. Property owners — stores, restaurants, landlords, and other businesses — have a legal duty to keep their premises reasonably safe and to warn of or fix known hazards. When they ignore that duty and you are injured, attorney Tyson Kutner pursues the compensation you are owed for clients throughout South Florida.
The property owner’s duty
A business or landlord that invites the public onto its property has to keep that property reasonably safe. That means inspecting for hazards, cleaning up spills, repairing broken surfaces, and warning people about dangers that cannot be fixed right away. A wet floor with no caution sign, a cracked walkway left in disrepair, a dim stairwell — each can be a breach of that duty. When a careless owner lets a known hazard linger and someone gets hurt, the law allows the injured person to seek accountability.
Proving a slip and fall claim: the notice requirement
These cases rarely turn on whether you fell — they turn on whether the property owner is legally responsible. Under Florida Statute §768.0755, when you slip on a “transitory foreign substance” in a business establishment, you must prove the business had actual or constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition. Constructive knowledge means the hazard existed long enough that the business should have known about it and addressed it. That notice question is usually the central battleground, and it is exactly where an experienced slip and fall attorney earns their keep.
Evidence is what wins that fight, and it disappears fast. Surveillance video is frequently recorded over, and incident reports and maintenance logs have to be requested quickly before they are lost. Acting promptly is one of the most important things you can do to protect your claim.
Common hazards behind a fall
Most trip and fall injuries trace back to a handful of preventable conditions:
- Wet or freshly mopped floors with no warning signs
- Spills left unattended in aisles and walkways
- Broken or uneven pavers and sidewalks
- Poor lighting that hides a hazard
- Loose mats, rugs, and scattered debris
Injuries from a slip, trip, and fall
A fall is not a minor event. The injuries we see are often serious and lasting, including:
- Broken bones
- Head injuries and traumatic brain injuries
- Back and spinal injuries
These injuries can mean surgery, time out of work, and long recoveries — which is why the full cost of a fall is so often far larger than an insurer’s first offer suggests.
What to do after a fall
If you are able, report the fall to a manager and ask that an incident report be made. Photograph the hazard and the surrounding area, get the names of any witnesses, and keep the shoes and clothing you were wearing. See a doctor promptly, both for your health and to document your injuries. Then contact a slip and fall lawyer quickly, so surveillance video, incident reports, and maintenance logs can be requested before they vanish.
Were you partly at fault?
You may still recover. Florida follows a modified comparative negligence rule (updated in 2023): if you are more than 50% at fault you cannot recover, but otherwise your damages are reduced by your percentage of fault. Insurers routinely argue that the victim simply was not watching where they were going — shifting blame to shrink or deny the claim. Countering that tactic with hard evidence is often what protects the value of your case. Keep in mind that the statute of limitations for these claims is generally two years from the date of the fall.
What you may recover
A successful slip and fall claim can compensate you for:
- Past and future medical expenses
- Lost wages
- Pain and suffering
You can see what that kind of accountability looks like in the recoveries below.
Serving South Florida
From our Palmetto Bay office, Tyson Kutner represents fall-injury clients across Pinecrest, Kendall, Cutler Bay, and Coral Gables, out to South Miami and Key Biscayne, and throughout Miami-Dade County. Wherever in the community a careless property owner let a hazard go unaddressed, we are ready to help.
If you slipped, tripped, or fell because of an unsafe property, contact Kutner Personal Injury for a free consultation — no fee unless we win.
