A Los Angeles slip and fall law firm that makes the property owner answer.
A wet aisle with no cone. A raised sidewalk slab that trips you in the dark. A stairwell light that burned out months ago. Property owners rarely admit they knew about the hazard. Our job is to prove they did, or that they should have.
No fee unless we win. Free, confidential case review.
Falls get laughed off, right up until the MRI. A shopper goes down on spilled juice in a Glendale grocery aisle, feels embarrassed, waves off help, and drives home. Three days later she cannot raise her arm above her shoulder. The diagnosis is a torn rotator cuff that needs surgery. For older adults the stakes climb higher: a broken hip after a fall can mean months of rehabilitation and a permanent loss of independence, and fatal complications are more common than most families realize.
The store, meanwhile, has already opened a claim file. Its risk department has the surveillance footage, the employee statements, and the maintenance records. You have a sore hip and a claim number. That imbalance is the whole reason premises liability lawyers exist, and closing it quickly is most of what we do in the first two weeks of a fall case.
Slips and trips are legally the same claim with different physics. A slip case is usually about a surface: spilled liquid, fresh wax, rain tracked onto tile. A trip and fall case is about an obstruction or a height change: a sidewalk slab lifted by tree roots, torn carpet in an apartment hallway, an extension cord across a walkway, a single unmarked step in dim light, a missing handrail. Both are premises liability, both turn on the same question of notice, and we handle both.
Notice is the battlefield in nearly every fall case.
California premises liability is negligence law applied to property. In plain terms, the jury instructions ask four things: did the defendant own, lease, occupy, or control the property; was the defendant negligent in how it was used or maintained; were you harmed; and was that negligence a substantial factor in causing the harm. No exotic doctrine, just proof.
The fight almost always lands on one word: notice. A store is not automatically liable because someone dropped grapes in aisle four. It is liable if it knew about the hazard (actual notice) or if the hazard sat there long enough that a reasonable inspection would have found it (constructive notice). California courts have held that when a store cannot show it inspected the area within a reasonable time before the fall, a jury may infer the hazard was there long enough to be discovered. That is why the store's own sweep logs, the records showing when an employee last walked and cleaned the aisle, so often decide these cases. Gaps in the log are our evidence. A log that was filled out in one sitting, in one pen, at the end of a shift, is even better.
Fall evidence disappears on a schedule.
Surveillance systems overwrite themselves. Depending on the retailer, footage of your fall may be gone in thirty days, sometimes far less. One of the first letters out of this office in a fall case is a preservation demand: keep the video, the sweep logs, the incident report, the employee schedules, and the maintenance and repair records, or face a spoliation argument later. Judges and juries do not react kindly to a store that received that letter and let the footage vanish anyway.
You can help before we are ever involved. Photograph the hazard and the whole area around it, including any warning cones or their absence. Get names and numbers of witnesses. Keep the shoes you were wearing; defense lawyers love to speculate about footwear, and producing the actual pair ends that conversation. Report the fall to management so the incident exists on paper, and get medical care the same day if you have symptoms.
Who ends up across the table.
The defendant is rarely just "the store." Grocery and big box chains defend fall claims through national risk departments and third party administrators that handle thousands of files a year. Apartment falls pull in the landlord, the property management company, and sometimes a janitorial or landscaping contractor. In condo and townhome communities, the HOA is typically responsible for common areas like walkways, pool decks, and stairwells. Commercial leases split responsibility between tenant and owner in ways that are invisible until we get the lease in discovery. Each of these parties points at the others, which is precisely why we identify every insured entity early and put all of them on notice.
Fault arguments come in a predictable rotation. You should have seen it. You were looking at your phone. Your shoes were wrong. There was a cone somewhere in the building. California's pure comparative negligence rule takes the sting out of all of them: a percentage of fault reduces your recovery but does not erase it. We prepare clients for these arguments on day one so nothing an adjuster says later comes as a surprise.
Sidewalks, cities, and a six month clock.
Trip and fall injuries on public sidewalks follow different rules. A claim against the City of Los Angeles, the County, or another public entity generally must be presented in writing within six months of the injury, long before any lawsuit. Los Angeles has a well documented history of sidewalk disrepair and has faced litigation and large repair commitments over sidewalk conditions. Public entity cases also involve immunity doctrines and a "dangerous condition of public property" standard that is stricter than ordinary negligence, so the sooner a lawyer maps the claim, the better.
Falls sit inside our broader Los Angeles personal injury practice. When a fall causes a brain bleed, a spinal injury, or another permanent condition, we build it the way we build any catastrophic injury case, with lifetime numbers. And when a fall proves fatal, which happens to older adults more often than people expect, the claim becomes a wrongful death case for the family.
Notice, evidence, and the store's playbook.
The store had me fill out an incident report. Did I hurt my case?
No. Reporting the fall is usually helpful because it creates a record that the incident happened, with a date, a time, and a location. What hurts cases is what people write in the narrative box, so keep any description short and factual. If you have not yet given a recorded statement to the store's insurer, do not. Talk to us first.
I felt fine at the scene and woke up in pain the next day. Is it too late?
Not at all. Adrenaline masks injuries, and soft tissue damage, disc injuries, and even fractures often declare themselves hours or days later. See a doctor as soon as symptoms appear, tell the provider exactly how you were hurt, and save everything: photos, shoes, clothing, and the names of anyone who saw you go down.
What if the store says the spill was obvious and I should have seen it?
That is a comparative fault argument, and California handles it by percentages, not by dismissal. Even if a jury decided you were partly careless, your recovery is reduced by your share of fault rather than eliminated. Stores raise the "open and obvious" defense in nearly every case. It succeeds far less often than adjusters suggest on the phone.
How long do I have to file a slip and fall claim in California?
Generally two years from the date of the fall under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. If you fell on public property, such as a city sidewalk or a government building, a written claim must usually be presented within six months under the Government Claims Act. Waiting also lets video get erased and witnesses scatter, so the practical deadline is much sooner than the legal one.
Tell us about your fall.
Three quick questions. No cost, no obligation, and no fee unless we win.
Hurt in an accident? Talk to us today.
The call is free. The case review is free. You pay nothing unless we win for you.