ABC's of a Slip and Fall Accidents-Part 1-Who is the Defendant?

In Colorado, slip and fall cases against landowners are governed by Colorado's Premises Liability Act ("PLA") and not under traditional negligence principles. This can radically alter the analysis of whether you have a case.

The same analysis is used for all cases, at least at the beginning. The first step is to determine the proper Defendant. Landowner is defined as "including, without limitation, an authorized agent or a person in possession of real property and a person legally responsible for the condition of real property or for the activities conducted or circumstances existing on real property." C.R.S. 13-21-115(1) This means that, for purposes of applying the PLA, there may be many proper defendants. For instance, in a recent case, an employee fell on ice near the exit of her workplace. We pursued claims against the owner of the building, the property management company, and the landscape and snowplow company. Each defendant fit the definition of "landowner" and thus, were proper defendants under the PLA.

Many times landowners will contract with other parties to be responsible for certain tasks, such as snow removal. In Colorado, landowners can contract someone else into liability, but in most instances cannot contract themselves out of liability. It is particularly important to identify all possible defendants before a lawsuit is filed. It is also possible that not all defendants will fit the definition of a landowner. For instance, in another case, a landowner claimed that some outside party was responsible for creating the dangerous condition. If the landowner was right, the PLA would not apply and you would apply traditional negligence concepts. These cases are tricky and require professional assistance.

Once you have identified the proper defendants, the next step is to determine your status on the property relative to those defendants. This issue will be discussed in Slip and Fall Accidents-Part 2-Status on the Property. Feel free to visit http://www.personalinjuryco.com/ for additional information or to call us at 303-597-4500 to discuss the facts of your case.