3 Ways Lawyers Look at Premises Liability in a Personal Injury Case

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Are you looking for a personal injury lawyer? If you want to know more about how these legal professionals deal with cases where someone has injured themselves on someone else's property, read on to find out more about the basis behind the average premises liability injury claim.

Personal injury attorneys are dedicated to serving their clients' interest in court, by going over the facts of the case, and evaluating it in detail to see how they can get compensation for the victim. Here are some of the ways that an injury lawyer might try to figure out whether you have a case or not.

Deciphering Federal , State and Local Law

First of all, injury lawyers have to know not only federal law, but the law in the state and locality where the client was injured, or possibly also where one or the other party resides. That's because different states in different municipalities can have very different rules and regulations about handling personal injury cases. For example, in some communities, a hazard must need some standard for being considered "obvious" in order to constitute third-party responsibility. So it's important that lawyers evaluate a case based on how local ordinances may apply.

Case Precedent

Another thing injury lawyers might do is look at cases that are similar to the case that client has brought before them. This is called 'establishing case precedent' and it's part of the common way to do all sorts of law, but also relates specifically to personal injury. This resource from California Courts shows more about how case precedent works.

Visitor Status

There's another aspect of the case that applies directly to cases of premises liability, or in other words, cases where a visitor has injured himself or herself on someone else's business or personal property.

In general, lawyers will use different status categories to apply to the visitor, and this is important in establishing whether a personal injury case will be successful or not.

The categories here are fairly simple -- they consist of three categories -- an invitee, a licensee and a trespasser. They're defined as follows:

• invitee -- someone who is invited onto the property
• licensee -- someone who is a guest or takes the initiative to visit a property with the owner's permission
• trespasser -- someone who doesn't have authorization to be on the property

Different kinds of standards apply for these three categories. Just as it's important for injury lawyers to look into applicable law and case precedent, they also have to take these kinds of fact into account or building a personal injury case.

All of the above may go into a consultation where a lawyer (like those at Modesitt Law Offices PC) tries to figure out the client's legal options and best possible court outcomes, for seeking money to cover the costs of an injury.

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3 April 2015