What Are Some of the Most Challenging Slip and Fall Cases?

All slip and fall cases are a challenge to some degree. In Utah, we get a lot of people who have slip and fall on like ice cases ’cause we have such rough winters. I had a client who slipped and fell right outside of a Babies “R”Us and there was a bunch of ice just on the other side of entering the store. But this was as she was exiting, and we had to show that number one, the weather started while she was in the store. So, in other words, she didn’t encounter the dangerous conditions as she entered. She was in the store for about an hour, and then when she left, all of a sudden, it was dangerous because of the condition.

So we had to bring in experts to talk about the weather. We had to bring in people to talk about how slippery the ice can be, and how quickly if they just pre-salt the walkways, then it will prevent the ice from accumulating. And so that was a good one because most people don’t like those slip-and-fall cases here or the ice cases. And we were able to get her a great recovery. She fell hard, was holding her baby at the time, protected her baby, and hurt her back and head pretty badly.  And we were able to get a good result.

I’ve also had good results with parking lot cases, which, again, are notoriously hard to win. But if there’s big potholes in a parking lot, people don’t always look out for them, especially if it’s dark. And so we’ve had good success where parking lots aren’t taken care of. There’s potholes that people step into. We get experts involved that can talk about what the standard codes are for building a parking lot and entry and all those kinds of things. And we’ve had great results with broken ankles, and broken feet. I had a knee that went out and we were able to win all these cases because we got enough evidence and we know what buttons to push with the insurance company to settle them without the need to go to court.