Depending on where a public restroom is located, it can be used by hundreds or thousands of people daily. Public restrooms, where splashes of water (and other liquids) can be all over the place, are responsible for thousands of slip and fall accidents in the U.S. each year.
“But a trip and fall accident is not the only type of accident to expect at a public restroom,” warns our Philadelphia public restroom accident attorney at Dan Doyle Law Group. Regardless of where a public restroom is located – at a shopping mall, commercial business, hospital, restaurant, or any other place – the owner of that property has a legal duty to ensure a safe environment for all those who need to use a restroom.
Typically, that means conducting routine inspections of the premises and maintaining the restroom in a safe and sanitary condition. If the owner of the property truly cares about the safety of his or her guests or is simply trying to ensure that he or she does everything reasonably expected from him/her by law to escape liability for public restroom accidents, that owner will employ someone to inspect and clean the restroom every hour or so.
Statistically speaking, the vast majority of public restroom accidents in Philadelphia and elsewhere in Pennsylvania are caused by the negligence or carelessness on the part of the owner of the property, which is definitely good news for you if you are looking for financial compensation for your damages and losses suffered as a result of a public restroom injury.
In a nutshell, you have a right to recover damages if you can prove that the public restroom was not maintained in a safe and sanitary condition free of any hazards. More often than not, the owner of the property will argue that he or she did not know about the hazardous condition, which is why you may need help from an experienced public restroom accident attorney in Philadelphia or elsewhere in Pennsylvania to prove that the condition existed for an unreasonably long period of time and should have been cleaned in a timely manner to prevent harm.
In many cases, victims of public restroom accidents have no idea how to report their accident and who should be notified about their injury, because it is not immediately clear who owns, controls, and maintains this particular location. For this reason, contacting a skilled lawyer is the only viable way to determine liability and protect your legal rights.
After all, there have been numerous cases in which owners of public restrooms denied personal injury claims filed by their injured guests arguing that it is not possible to confirm that the injury was caused on their property.
Since public restrooms are visited by hundreds or thousands of people daily, it makes them very difficult to maintain in a safe condition 24/7. This means that sometimes, it is not possible to recover damages after sustaining an injury at a public restroom simply because the property owner cannot be held liable for your injury.
The main factor that will be taken into account when determining liability in a public restroom accident is how long the dangerous condition existed prior to the accident and whether the owner was reasonably expected to eliminate this condition through routine inspections and maintenance. You may want to speak to a skilled premises liability attorney to determine the value of your case and prove that the property owner can be held liable for your injury. Schedule a free consultation with our lawyers from Dan Doyle Law Group by calling u today at 215-987-3730.