"Do I have a Pennsylvania slip and fall case?"
If that question—or something like it—is what brought you here, you're in the right place.
Most slip and fall (and trip and fall) cases are grounded in the law of negligence. Negligence is simply a failure to act as carefully as required by the circumstances. What does that mean in a slip and fall case? It means that landowners have a legal duty to make their property reasonably safe for known or foreseeable visitors. But as we'll see, duty is a two-way street. Visitors also have a legal duty to look out for their own safety.
We start with the elements of a Pennsylvania slip and fall claim, focusing most of our attention on the issue of fault—who's legally responsible for your injuries. We'll also touch on the statute of limitations, defenses the landowner might raise, and more.
To prove a Pennsylvania slip and fall or trip and fall claim, you must show that:
The first two elements—duty of care and breach of that duty—are what the law calls negligence. In a typical case, legal responsibility comes down to whose negligence caused the accident. Most often, you point the finger at the defendant (the party you're suing), and the defendant turns around and points right back at you.
(Learn more about slip and fall claims on government property, at a business, and at a private residence.)
Anyone who owns or controls a property can be liable (legally responsible) for a slip and fall injury. Landowners, tenants, contractors, property managers, and easement owners, among others—we'll call them all "owners" or "landowners" for the sake of convenience—must use reasonable care to keep property they own or control safe, especially for visitors who enter the property with permission.
Your lawyer will identify and pursue all potentially responsible parties, provided they have insurance or other assets to cover your damages. In most cases, they'll fight among themselves to figure out who has to pay you.
The duty of care is a legal standard—a rule that explains what a landowner should do to make their property safe for visitors. It says to a landowner: "This is the least you must do to avoid legal responsibility for injuries that happen on your property." It's up to the judge to decide whether a duty of care exists.
In Pennsylvania slip and fall cases, a duty of care arises when:
Under Pennsylvania law, a landowner's duty of care usually depends on the relationship, if any, between the landowner and the visitor. Pennsylvania premises liability law—the legal rules covering (among other things) slip and fall claims—recognizes three categories of visitors: Trespassers, invitees, and licensees.
Trespassers. A trespasser is someone who's on a property without permission, or after permission to be there expired or was revoked.
Duty owed to trespassers. As a general rule, Pennsylvania landowners have only a limited duty of care to trespassers. They must refrain from willful or wanton misconduct, meaning intentional wrongdoing that ignores a risk of harm or that's meant to cause harm. Simple negligence, by itself, usually won't result in liability.
Like many states, though, Pennsylvania has carved out a couple of exceptions to this limited duty rule. First, a landowner who knows that trespassers regularly enter their land must warn them about known dangers. But there's no duty to inspect for hidden hazards or to take other steps to make the property safe.
Second, Pennsylvania has a special rule for child trespassers. The state's "attractive nuisance" rule makes a landowner liable for injuries to children who are drawn to a property by a condition that kids often find irresistible. Examples include things like swimming pools, trampolines, and abandoned vehicles. When a property presents an attractive nuisance and the landowner knows (or should know) that kids trespass there, the landowner must take reasonable steps—fencing the property, for instance—to keep trespassing children safe.
Invitees. An invitee (also known as a "business invitee") enters a property with the owner's permission. Both the invitee and the landowner might benefit from the invitee's presence. But the landowner usually derives a financial or other valuable benefit from an invitee's visit. Retail customers, for example, are invitees. So are patients at a medical building, movie theater guests, and nightclub patrons.
Duty owed to invitees. The highest duty of care is owed to invitees. When an owner has actual or constructive notice of a dangerous condition that's unknown to an invitee, the landowner must exercise reasonable care for the invitee's safety. Reasonable care requires the landowner to either warn of the condition or fix it.
Constructive notice means the condition was there for a long enough time that the owner should have discovered it, had they made a reasonable effort to inspect the property. In other words, landowners have a duty to inspect their property to discover hazards, and must warn invitees about hidden dangers or take steps to fix the condition.
A landowner probably isn't responsible for an invitee's injury when the invitee knows of a dangerous condition, either because it's open and obvious (discussed below) or the owner warned of it. But if the landowner knows there's a risk of harm to an invitee even though the danger is obvious, the landowner might still have a duty to act for the invitee's safety.
Licensees. You're a licensee when you come to a property with the owner's permission, but for a purpose that mostly benefits you. Someone who hunts or fishes on land with the owner's permission, for instance, is a licensee. Social guests, appliance repair technicians, and delivery people are licensees, too.
Duty owed to licensees. As with trespassers, landowners must avoid willfully or wantonly causing injury to a licensee. Also, an owner who has actual knowledge of a dangerous condition that's unknown to a licensee must either warn about the danger or remedy it. A landowner probably isn't responsible for injuries resulting from known or obvious dangers.
To prove that a landowner was negligent, you start by showing there was a dangerous condition on the property. Next, you must show that the landowner knew (or in the case of invitees, knew or should have known) about the danger.
Examples of dangerous conditions. Here are some examples of dangerous property conditions:
The landowner knew of the danger. A landowner can't be expected to warn about or fix dangerous conditions when the landowner isn't aware of them. Proving that the landowner had notice of the condition is critical to a slip and fall claim. In most cases, the landowner will deny having had any notice of the danger, or having received notice in time to warn about or fix it before you were hurt.
For invitees and licensees, a landowner's actual knowledge of a dangerous condition will suffice. Unless they created the danger, proving what a landowner actually knew can be difficult. Here are examples of the kinds of evidence you might look for.
When an invitee is injured, the landowner's constructive notice of the danger can be enough to establish a duty of care. You'll need to rely on the landowner's constructive knowledge of a dangerous condition when—as often will be the case—the landowner denies having actually known of it.
The key to constructive notice is proving how long the dangerous condition existed before it injured you. From there, you can argue that had the landowner been reasonably careful, they would have inspected the property, discovered the danger, and fixed it or warned you about it.
(Learn more about proving fault for slip and fall accidents.)
In addition to lack of notice, landowners can raise a number of defenses to a slip and fall claim. Three of the most common are:
Your own negligence is a defense to the owner's legal responsibility. If the accident happened in a contributory fault state, any negligence on your part—even 1% of the total—defeats your claim entirely. When the accident happened in a comparative fault state like Pennsylvania, your share of the negligence reduces the damages you can collect.
Some comparative fault states, including Pennsylvania, bar you from collecting any damages if you're mostly to blame for what happened. Here's how it works.
Pennsylvania is a "modified" comparative negligence state. In a "modified" comparative negligence state, your percentage share of the fault reduces your personal injury damages by that amount, but only if you aren't mostly to blame for your fall. If you're found to be 51% or more at fault, you can't collect any damages.
Suppose, for example, a Pennsylvania jury finds that you were 30% at fault for your fall, assigning the remaining 70% of the blame to the defendant. Jurors decide your total damages are $100,000. You can collect $70,000: $100,000 x 70%. But if the jury decides you were 51% or more responsible? You get nothing.
(42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 7102(a) (2024).)
What did you do that was negligent? The defendant will leave no stone unturned looking for ways to blame you for the fall. Here are a few of the most common claims.
In many states, landowners aren't responsible for injuries caused by open and obvious dangers. An open and obvious danger is a condition that's clearly visible and that should be seen by a reasonable person exercising ordinary care for their own safety. Common examples include accumulations of snow or ice, large objects, and darkness.
In Pennsylvania, the fact that a dangerous condition is open and obvious isn't an automatic defense to liability. Visitors must take reasonable steps to protect themselves from open and obvious dangers. But if the landowner should anticipate that the condition still poses a risk of harm—visitors might be distracted and not perceive the danger, for instance, or a visitor might be unable to avoid the hazard even with reasonable care—then the landowner still has a duty to warn of the danger or take other steps to minimize the likelihood of injury.
When you voluntarily and knowingly assume the risk of a known danger, injuries resulting from that danger ordinarily aren't the responsibility of the landowner. Classic examples include recreational activities like bungee jumping, base jumping, skydiving, and other high-risk adventures.
A "statute of limitations" is a law that limits your time to file a lawsuit in court. For most Pennsylvania slip and fall claims, you have two years from the date you were injured to sue. Different rules might apply when:
If you think one of these situations applies to your case or you're not sure how much time you have to file a slip and fall lawsuit, speak to a Pennsylvania personal injury lawyer right away. Miss the filing deadline and, absent an extension that gives you more time to sue, your slip and fall claim is legally dead. You've lost the right to recover damages for your injuries.
(See 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 5524(2) (2024); 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 5522(a) (2024); 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 5533(b)(1)(i) (2024); 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 5532 (2024).)
To answer that question, ask yourself these questions.
The defendant will be represented by an insurance company and its attorneys. It won't be a fair fight unless you have legal counsel, too. Here's how you can find a lawyer who's right for you.
Here are some other questions you might have about your slip and fall case.
Your lawyer will file your case in the state's main trial court, called the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas. The proper "venue," or location for your case, is likely nearest to where the defendant lives or has its main place of business, or where you fell and were injured.
Most personal injury cases settle without a trial. Yours probably will, too, unless the defendant feels confident a jury will find you were mostly to blame, you weren't badly hurt, or your injuries weren't caused by the fall. You should discuss negotiation and settlement strategies with your lawyer.
That depends. If the facts aren't disputed, it's clear the landowner was to blame, you've gathered the evidence to support your claim, and your injuries and damages are well documented, your case might settle in several weeks to a few months. If it goes to trial, expect the process to take a year or more, and even longer if there's an appeal. A case can settle at any time during trial preparation or trial.
If you win your case, you'll recover what the law calls "compensatory damages." These are meant to compensate you for:
(Learn more about how insurance companies value injury cases.)
Your slip and fall claim is a type of personal injury case. You can learn more about the laws we've covered here, as well as other Pennsylvania personal injury laws that might impact your claim.