We expect to be reasonably safe from harm while shopping, working, running errands, and enjoying some leisure time. Yet serious injuries can happen wherever you’re at. You might slip on a wet floor at Oak Park Mall, fall down at the T-Mobile Center because of a broken step, or even break an ankle because of uneven sidewalks in Hyde Park.
You can count on CPY Law in situations like these. Our attorneys can hold property owners accountable when they fail to repair or address known hazards. Our law firm can help ensure that local businesses and property owners play their part in keeping customers and neighbors safe. The bottom line is that if you’re hurt, we’re here for you.
You focus on healing while we handle the fight ahead. For a free, no-obligation consultation with our premises liability lawyers in Kansas City, MO, contact our law firm today.
Types of Premises Liability Cases Our Law Firm Can Handle
CPY Law can handle all kinds of property-related incidents in Kansas City. Our premises liability attorneys will carefully evaluate what happened and determine the best path forward for compensation.
Slips, Trips, and Falls
Slips, trips, and falls can happen anywhere. You may be shopping at a Whole Foods or Cosentino’s Market, or maybe catching a show at KC Live! Spilled beverages and food, exposed extension cords, and uneven surfaces can all contribute to serious falls and major injuries.
Dog Bites and Animal Attacks
Most dog owners in KCMO are responsible neighbors. Unfortunately, there are some dog owners who aren’t as attentive. This can lead to dog attacks out in public or when guests are on private property. When dogs attack, their owners are strictly liable for injuries. The attorneys at CPY Law can hold negligent dog owners accountable.
Sidewalk-Related Injuries
We often take sidewalks for granted when it comes to serious injuries, but uneven surfaces can lead to bad trips and falls. This doesn’t just apply to the elderly or people with mobility issues. Children and young adults can similarly suffer serious injuries when pavers get uprooted by trees or when sidewalks crumble over time.
Lack of Security
We expect bouncers at bars and clubs around KCMO. We also expect similar safety precautions at other businesses, apartment complexes, and other structures around the city. Unfortunately, there are cases in which property owners fail to keep people safe.
Examples of negligent security include a lack of guards or safety personnel, poor lighting at night or in low-light areas, lack of security cameras, and broken locks or gates.
Ceiling Collapses
When ceilings collapse at a business or residential property, they come down for a reason. Years of water damage can weaken drywall, plaster, and wood. Shoddy repairs may only fix the cosmetic issues rather than the structural ceiling damage. Poor construction in general could mean that the ceiling collapse was inevitable.
When a ceiling comes down, our Kansas City premises liability attorneys can help identify the root cause and hold the negligent party responsible for your injuries.
Fire Hazards and Building Code Violations
Fire hazards and other safety code violations need to be taken seriously. If there’s a fire in a building, broken alarms and a lack of emergency exits could result in countless preventable deaths. Landlords and property owners need to be held accountable whenever they cut corners and put profits over your safety.
Visitor Status at the Time of an Injury and Why It Matters
There are three general categories of visitors at a property:
- Invitees: Invitees are guests or customers at a business. Property owners owe invitees the highest duty of care, which means checking for any hazards on the premises and a duty to provide warnings about hazardous conditions.
- Licensees: Licensees are people who are on the premises for their own purposes. This covers most social guests at a property or residence. Property owners need to warn licensees of any known hazards, but they aren’t required to conduct the same kinds of inspections as they would for invitees.
- Trespassers: A trespasser is someone who is on a property without permission. Per RSMo § 537.351, property owners typically owe no duty of care to trespassers, though they cannot cause intentional harm to trespassers on the property.
How This Affects the Viability and Value of Your Premises Liability Claim
A person’s visitor status at the time of an incident determines whether or not the property owner is legally responsible for the visitor’s injuries.
For example, say that a customer at Nature’s Own Health Market slipped on a wet floor that was not marked. That invitee has a strong claim. Now say that someone broke into a Dillard’s and slipped on a wet floor left by a janitor. That trespasser has a much weaker claim to compensation given the nature of the incident.
Compensation in Premises Liability Cases
Compensation for your injuries includes economic damages (tangible and measurable financial losses) and non-economic damages (subjective and intangible losses). While working with you, our Kansas City premises liability attorneys can evaluate how much your case is actually worth.
- Medical Expenses: This includes any hospitalization, surgery, visits with specialists, use of assistive devices, and prescriptions for painkillers and other drugs.
- Future Healthcare Needs: This includes physical rehabilitation, occupational therapy, further work with doctors, and any anticipated treatments.
- Property Damage: This includes damage to a phone, tablet, clothing, jewelry, or other personal belongings at the time of the incident.
- Lost Income: This covers any time taken off work to recuperate from your injuries.
- Loss of Future Earnings: This covers loss of future earning potential or change in career trajectory due to a long-term or permanent disability.
- Pain and Suffering: This includes emotional distress, mental anguish, lingering or chronic pain after making a full recovery, and any ongoing sleep disturbances.
- Lower Quality of Life: This includes loss of interest in your favorite hobbies, a reduced sense of happiness or general well-being, and any strain on your interpersonal relationships after your injuries.
Compensation for Fatal Incidents on a Premises
If you’ve lost a family member in a tragic event, you have our deepest sympathies.
When you feel ready to speak with a lawyer about your next steps, we can discuss filing a wrongful death lawsuit. Compensation in a wrongful death claim can help cover funeral expenses, any grief or bereavement counseling, and the pain of losing your loved one’s companionship.
Partial Liability: Missouri’s Pure Comparative Fault Law
You can still seek compensation if you were partly at fault for a slip, trip, fall, or other injuries at a property This is because Missouri follows a pure comparative fault rule (RSMo § 537.765).
Under pure comparative fault, you can seek compensation even if you were partly or mostly at fault. Your compensation gets reduced by your share of liability in an accident.
Some insurance companies may claim that you should have been aware of a potential hazard at a property. This can reduce your compensation by thousands of dollars. Our Kansas City premises liability lawyers will contest false claims of shared liability. At CPY Law, we want you to get what’s fair.
How Long Do I Have to File a Premises Liability Lawsuit in Missouri?
The statute of limitations to file a premises liability claim depends on the nature of what happened.
- For injuries at a property, you typically have five years from the date of the incident to file a personal injury lawsuit (RSMo § 516.120)
- For fatal incidents at a property, you typically have three years from the date of death to file a wrongful death lawsuit (RSMo § 537.100)
There are some exceptions to these statutes of limitations. If your injury took place on public property or involved a government entity, you need to file a formal notice of a claim within 90 days of the incident.
While you may have up to a few years, it’s best to contact our Kansas City premises liability attorneys as soon as possible. Our lawyers can secure video footage and other evidence before it’s gone, start building a strong case, and negotiate a settlement with the insurance company that considers the full extent of your injuries.
Why Choose CPY Law If You’ve Been Injured at a Business or Someone’s Property
If you’ve been hurt in a fall or suffered a serious injury on someone else’s property in Kansas City, our premises liability attorneys are ready to help. We want you to focus on healing or grieving while we lead the fight forward.
Here’s why people throughout Jackson, Clay, Platte, and Cass counties trust CPY Law.
- Reliability and Legal Excellence: The team at CPY Law have decades of combined legal experience here in Missouri. We always work closely with clients to identify the best solutions for their case.
- We Hold Ourselves and Others Accountable: We seek accountability from others and demand the same from ourselves. When you hire us after a property-related incident, we will own the problem and lead the fight forward. We will do what we say, and we will ask the same of our staff and colleagues.
- Free and Confidential Consultations: At CPY Law, you don’t have to worry about upfront legal fees just to speak with a lawyer. Consultations with us are free, confidential, and no obligation. We just want to hear what happened and give you our honest assessment about your case.
- Clients Pay Us Nothing Unless We Win: At CPY Law, you owe us nothing unless and utilities we win. Since we work on a contingency fee basis, our lawyers only get paid after your premises liability case is successfully resolved. If we don’t win, you pay nothing.
Contact Our Kansas City Premises Liability Attorneys Near You
If you suffered a serious injury while at a business or on someone’s property, our lawyers are here to help. We’ll explain your options to you clearly and help you make the right decisions based on the evidence and your situation. For a free consultation with skilled premises liability lawyers near you, contact our Kansas City law firm today.
Frequently Asked Questions About Premises Liability in Kansas City
Below are some of the most common questions we’ve heard from clients who’ve suffered property-related injuries.
What is an “attractive nuisance” and how does it affect Missouri premises liability cases?
An attractive nuisance refers to any type of potentially dangerous condition or object on someone’s property that may attract children onto the property. This could mean a swimming pool, a trampoline, a pit or ditch, or an abandoned vehicle.
Property owners could be held liable for injuries to children involving an attractive nuisance if the owner is aware that children could enter the area, the object or condition increases the risk of injury, and the owner fails to take reasonable precautions to protect children from the potential danger.
What if I suffered a slip and fall injury while I was on-the-job at my workplace?
If you were involved in a slip, trip, or fall while you were working, your injuries will likely be covered through Missouri’s workers’ compensation system.
However, you may be able to file a personal injury lawsuit if a third party caused or contributed to the slip and fall. This third party is someone other than your employer or co-worker, such as a cleaning contractor, a contracted maintenance person, a property management company, or another business that occupies the same premises.
Who is legally responsible when a dangerous condition exists in a leased space?
This depends on which party had possession, control, and responsibility for the area in which the injury occurred. This could mean the tenant (whether it’s an individual or a business), the landlord or property owner, a property management company, or a maintenance contractor.
Keep in mind that multiple parties can be held liable depending on the circumstances of the injury or hazardous condition.
How much security is a business required to provide in Missouri?
This depends on the type of business. Under current Missouri law, businesses are not required to provide surveillance cameras, metal detectors, security guards, or other kinds of security measures unless potential criminal activity is reasonably foreseeable.
When determining whether a crime is reasonably foreseeable and if there was negligent security at a business, courts will consider the nature of the business, any past crimes at the property or its vicinity, and whether it’s practical and reasonable to implement certain security measures.
Are Missouri businesses required to remove snow and ice immediately after a storm?
No, at least not immediately after a snowstorm or blizzard has ended. There are currently no state laws that require businesses to get rid of ice and snow within a specified number of hours at the end of a storm.
However, Missouri businesses are expected to exercise reasonable care to prevent snow and ice-related slips and falls involving visitors.
