Anyone who owns property, including homeowners, landlords who own apartment buildings or other rental property and commercial businesses, like supermarkets, or schools, must keep their property, and sometimes, the surrounding areas, including sidewalks, safe for guests, customers or others. Even when property owners hire other people like construction contractors, gardeners, or property managers to take care of the property, the property owner is still responsible if the property is not in a safe condition and causes someone to be injured.
The attorneys at RAHMAN LAW PC have handled hundreds of cases involving people injured, maimed or killed by faulty or unsafe premises. We routinely handle premises liability cases involving:
- Potholes;
- Construction hazards (uneven or grooved temporary pavement, asphalt patches creating uneven surface, open or obscured trenches or holes, scaffold malfunctions, falling objects and debris, unsecured manhole covers);
- Trees roots causing uplifted sidewalks or other uneven, or cracked surfaces;
- Slip, trip or falls caused by liquid or debris on flooring or by slippery surfaces;
- Faulty handrails;
- Defective stairways, including damaged steps, lack of handrail, inadequate lighting;
- Uneven pavement, sidewalks or roadways;
- Lack of security leading to criminal activity.
We handle premises liability cases against private and commercial property owners and against government entities like cities, counties and states. For example, sometimes pedestrians are injured by tripping on uneven pavement, or falling into a pothole on a sidewalk or road owned by a City or a County. When this happens, it may be a “dangerous condition of public property” either caused by a City, County, Town, the State of California, or employees or contractors hired by any of these entities. If you were injured by a dangerous or confusing road or intersection, click here for more information on defective roadways.
Examples of a dangerous condition include:
- A complicated, confusing intersection, with few or no stop signs, lights or other controls where a collision occurs;
- A pothole, bump, trench or other uneven condition in the road or on a sidewalk;
- A raised sidewalk caused by tree roots;
- Construction hazards present without adequate warnings for bicyclists or pedestrians, such as uneven pavement, a grooved roadway or an open or partially concealed trench.
In California, the public entity which owns, possesses or controls the roadway is liable for the dangerous condition if it can be established that the property was in a dangerous condition at the time of the injury, that the injury was proximately caused by the dangerous condition, that the dangerous condition created a reasonably foreseeable risk of the kind of injury which was incurred, and either: (a) [a] negligent or wrongful act or omission of an employee of the public entity within the scope of his employment created the dangerous condition; or (b) [t]he public entity had actual or constructive notice of the dangerous condition a sufficient time prior to the injury to have taken measures to protect against the dangerous condition.
Contact RAHMAN LAW PC in our San Francisco office or our Paso Robles office today for a free consultation.