Watching Where You Walk
Evans Moore, LLC recently obtained a million-dollar recovery for an individual who fell within a medical facility. Slip/trip cases can be difficult to pursue in court, as jurors often feel that an individual who trips is always to blame for losing their balance. This bias can carry forward into jury deliberations, and verdicts in South Carolina must be unanimous.
Certainly, each of us has lost our balance or slipped due to our own inattention, carelessness, or just plain lack of coordination. However, other factors are often at play. Many times, trip injuries result from a failure to follow local building codes. Building codes set very specific requirements for areas such as stairways, thresholds, and changes in elevation where injuries are more likely to occur. Building codes have evolved over the years to set certain minimum requirements to make these areas safer and to account for human behavior and the way the human brain perceives its surroundings. For example, building codes prevent the use of stair risers of different heights. This code was put into effect because the human brain has difficulty processing stairs of different heights, and individuals who encounter stairs of varying heights are more likely to lose their footing. For the same reason, building codes often require the use of ramps instead of single steps up to deal with a change in floor elevation and set specific requirements for when and where handrails are to be installed. Unless a safety engineer, building inspector, or commercial builder is employed after a fall injury, many of these violations of the building code can go unnoticed. If you suffer from a fall, make sure to photograph the fall location so we can determine whether a violation of the building code or local law contributed to your fall.