When looking into personal injury claims, you may see people referring to the fact that a homeowner should have been aware of a dangerous situation, such as a damaged property that could cause someone to trip and fall. What does this mean from a legal perspective, and how is it determined whether or not the homeowner should have been aware of the situation?
The basic guidelines for determining if they should have known do tend to be a bit open for interpretation. Basically, homeowners should know about issues that have existed for a long time. Since the issues have been there for so long, it is assumed that they should have discovered them by themselves. Therefore, not taking care of the problem — leaving the danger there for other people — is on them.
However, this time frame may not always be strictly defined in Canada. This is where the regulations need to be interpreted from one case to the next to see if the person should have known.
What it comes down to is simply holding people liable for things that they could have prevented. If the damage to the property occurred the night before and they didn’t know, they wouldn’t be expected to have fixed it already if someone got hurt the next day, for example. If the damage occurred months ago and they ignored it, though, they may be liable for this negligence.
Since things can be a bit tricky with laws like this. Seeing as how these incidents have to be interpreted for a trip-and-fall accident in court in order to receive compensation, it is crucial that people are well aware of their legal rights if they are approaching this type of a case.
Source: FindLaw, "Slip and Fall FAQ" Sep. 18, 2014
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