Northern Virginia Personal Injury Lawyer - Property Owner's Liability (Slip & Fall) - Most Commented

Dog Bite Law in Virginia

Ben Glass — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 21:27:22 GMT

What happens if you are bitten or attacked by a dog and suffer injury in Virginia? The answer may depend on what county you live in.

The general law in Virginia is that a dog owner owes no duty to another absent knowledge of the propensity of the dog to attack or bite. This is known as the "common law" duty of a dog owner. We call it "every dog gets one free bite."

However, if your county has adopted a leash law you should be able to win your case by showing that the dog owner violated the leash law.

In analyzing a Norfolk ordinance, the Supreme Court of Virginia said:

The purpose of the ordinance, as we read it, is to protect the public against hazards created by dogs running at large, including the most obvious hazard, dog-bite.

So, if the statute is designed to protect the public, then violation of the statute may give rise to liability even if the owner did not know of the dog's propensity to violence.

In Fairfax County we have an effective leash law which should govern.

FAIRFAX COUNTY CODE (Class 4 misdeamenor)

Section 41.1-2-4 Unrestricted dogs prohibited; leash law (a) No dog shall run unrestricted, as defined in Section 41.1-1-1, in the County. Any person who is the owner of a dog found unrestricted in the County shall be in violation of this Section.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Ben Glass

Contract Security Firm May be Liable for Injury

Ben Glass — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 11:28:01 GMT

According to a ruling by the Arizona Court of Appeals, retailers who hire security firms in to patrol their premises can be held liable if a customer receives a personal injury.

The judges acknowledged that firms who hire independent contractors for such jobs generally cannot be sued for the activities of the employees of that contractor. However, according to Judge Garve VÃ¡squez, that changes when the rules and regulations for those workers are actually set by the retailer. He said that in that case, the retailer also assumes some of the liability.

Involved in the case is Safeway customer Steven Simon. He removed two cans of cat food from a shelf in the store, but later put them back. He left the store after purchasing other items.

Once outside, Simon was approached by Jose Howard, an employee of the firm hired by Safeway to handle security, Sonoran Desert Investigations. Howard accused Simon of shoplifting and allegedly lifted his shirt. He found nothing but still told Howard to never return to the store.

According to Simon, he insisted on speaking to the manager and returned to the store. He said that he was taken to a back room where he was then assaulted.

The lawsuit Simon filed against Safeway was thrown out by Judge Sarah Simmons of Pima County Superior Court. She accepted the position of the company that it could not be held liable for the actions of the security company or its employee.

According to VÃ¡squez, however, the facts of the case suggest that the rules may not apply.

For more information on this subject, please refer to the section on Premises Liability / Slip & Fall.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Ben Glass

SLIP-AND-FALL VICTIM LOSES HIS CASE BEFORE IT EVEN STARTS

Ben Glass — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 05:51:03 GMT

A federal court in Richmond has thrown out a lawsuit against a NASCAR racetrack and another occupier of the property based on the plaintiff's "contributory negligence."

A federal court in Richmond, Virginia has thrown out a personal injury lawsuit against a NASCAR racetrack and another occupier of the property based on the plaintiff's "contributory negligence."

According to published reports the plaintiff tripped and fell over a metal barrier which was attached to a crowd control device which looked much like a bicycle rack. The court found that even if the barrier was negligently placed and presented as a hazard the plaintiff's case must be thrown out because of his own failure to see the barrier.

In Virginia, if the inured party is even 1 percent negligent, his case is dismissed no matter how egregious the defendant's conduct. Virginia is one of about four states in the entire country that will throw out a case even if the defendant was 99 percent negligent.

Comment from Virginia Personal Injury Attorney Ben Glass: in most states, the negligence of the two parties would be compared and if the plaintiff was 15% negligent, his verdict would be reduced. Virginia stands in the dark ages in barring recovery for any contributory negligence on the part of the injured victim.
. This is discussed in depth in my book, the Five Deadly Sins That Can Wreck Your Virginia Accident Case.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Ben Glass

TACO BELL TO REMOVE GREEN ONIONS

Ben Glass — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 21:16:25 GMT

You will not be able to get scallions from Taco Bell any time soon after it reported that testing suggested that the green onions may be responsible for the e. coli outbreak that has made more than 40 people sick in three states.

In a press release Taco Bell said that preliminary testing by an independent lab found three samples of green onions that appear to have a dangerous strain of the bacteria.

Nine of 46 people sickened remain hospitalized including an 11-year-old boy with kidney damage. According to New Jersey's Health Commissioner the latest case of e. coli sickening was reported on November 29.

If you have concerns about the outbreak you can call Taco Bell at 800 822 6235.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Ben Glass

Slip and fall on ice case settles for $100,000.00.

Ben Glass — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 19:26:34 GMT

According to published reports, in this Prince William County personal injury case the plaintiff fell on ice at the exit to a car wash. Precipitation had stopped the day before the accident and some of the ice was caused by run off from the car wash. The plaintiff claimed that the proprietor of the car wash had ample time to clear the ice. The plaintiff had $21,000.00 in medical bills resulting from a left ankle distal fibular fracture with open reduction and internal fixation. The case settled for $100,000.00.

Note from Virginia Personal Injury Attorney Ben Glass:

Most slip and fall cases are very difficult. This case appears to have been hard fought as the plaintiff has to prove that a dangerous condition existed and that the defendant had notice of the condition and an opportunity to prevent injury.
On the other hand, according to Virginia's contributory negligence in personal injury cases law, if the victim is in any way at fault, she loses. This was a good result for the plaintiff.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Ben Glass

The only good kind of slip and fall case.

Ben Glass — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 06:46:35 GMT

We often get calls about people who have slipped and fallen in stores. Generally the cases are of two types. The more common case occurs when some food or drink has been left on the floor and the customer slips, falls and hurts himself. These cases are actually pretty difficult because we must prove first that the store knew or had enough time to have known, that there was a foreign object on the floor that could hurt someone and that the store did not take appropriate steps to clean it up in time.

The most common cause of food or drink on the floor is another customer and oftentimes we have no information as to how long it had been on the floor. The other great difficulty in these cases is proving that the customer was not in any way at fault. In Virginia, under the "contributory negligence doctrine" if a person is at fault in any significant way then they cannot recover even though the defendant was at much greater fault.

The second type of slip and fall case is one where the store has done something to deliberately make the floor slippery and then not warned about it. This usually involves cleaning the floor.

In Richmond recently a jury awarded $200,000.00 to a plaintiff where the supermarket floor had just been cleaned by an independent contractor and had a wet residue from the cleaning. The court upheld the verdict finding that there was evidence that a wet residue from the cleaning was present and that the store failed to warn plaintiff of this condition just before the plaintiff fell. This was a situation where, without warning signs, it would have been virtually impossible for the customer to know that the floor was dangerously wet.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Ben Glass

Supreme Court: Innkeeper Liable For Guests' Injuries

Ben Glass — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 09:13:04 GMT

The owner and operator of a Holiday Inn Express in Roanoke, Virginia, claimed that it could not be liable for injuries sustained by a guest when that guest was robbed and injured in its parking lot. The guest was shot and his infant daughter, who was still in the family car, was abducted. The trial court had dismissed the case, finding that a Virginia hotel does not owe duty to a guest to protect it from violent third parties.

The Supreme Court reversed and found that there is a special relationship between an innkeeper and a guest that imposes a duty of "utmost care and diligence" to protect the guest against reasonably foreseeable injury from the criminal conduct of a third party.

Here, where the plaintiff alleged that the hotel was in a high crime area and indeed had reported numerous crimes and trespasses against its property to the police over a number of years, that hotel may be liable to a guest for failing to protect that guest from injury.

The guest alleged that over a three year period prior to his attack, the hotel employees had contacted the police 96 times to report criminal conduct involving robberies, malicious wounding, shootings, and other criminally assaulted acts. As a result of these repeated incidents, the hotel had been advised by policy that "its guests were at a specific eminent risk for harm to their persons from uninvited persons coming into or upon its property."

The case is Taboada v. Daly 7, Inc. and it was decided March 3, 2006.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Ben Glass