How to Prove Notice in a Fort Lauderdale Slip and Fall Accident Case

Florida common law and now Florida Statue Section 768.O755 have essentially copied the Restatement of Torts II Definition of Constructive Notice.

The issue for the Fort Lauderdale trier of fact in court is essentially whether the property owner/supermarket should have known that the dangerous element existed on its flooring, circumstantially.

Fort Lauderdale injury lawyers have the task of demonstrating and proving constructive notice in order to prove that a property owner that is allege to have caused a Fort Lauderdale slip and fall injury will be liable for the slip and fall injury accident victim’s damages. There are many ways of attempting to establish a property owner’s constructive notice.

Florida courts, and therefore our common law, have generally held property owners to a duty of conducting reasonable inspections during reasonable intervals of time in order to detect cleanup or repair and thereby prevent slip and fall accidents. Florida courts have generally adhered in the past to a 15 minute existence standard before charging a commercial property owner with having had constructive notice or knowledge of a foreign substance on their premises. So in other words, if a Fort Lauderdale injury lawyer representing a slip and fall injury accident victim can establish (in pre-suit or at trial) that the property owner allowed the foreign substance to remain on its flooring for more than 15 minutes the courts would have generally instructed the jury to find that defendant guilty of negligence. So then comes the task of how do you date the proverbial banana peel that is somehow brought into evidence sometimes 3-4 years after the date of the Fort Lauderdale slip and fall accident to have been 3 years and the necessary notice period of 15 minutes old.

The more common manner of proof is by demonstrating that the property owner neglected to inspect each area of the store on the quarter of the hour and I submit to you that that type of reasonable inspection is rarely carried out.