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Every property owner who allows people to visit their land for any reason owes each of those visitors a “duty of care,” and the duty that owners of commercial properties like retail stores owe to customers is especially broad. With that said, store managers and the companies they work for are not always liable for every accident on their property, and the insurance providers protecting these properties tend to fight civil litigation tenaciously and without any sympathy for injured people.
Fortunately, you have help available to you from an experienced Sugar Land commercial property premises liability lawyer who can fight back on your behalf and increase your odds of getting a favorable case result. No matter how specifically you were injured or what types of damages you need to recover for, your dedicated premises liability attorney can provide the custom-tailored support you need from start to finish of your legal proceedings.
It is worth emphasizing that commercial property owners do not have an expanded “duty of care” under Texas state law just because they run a commercial operation on their land. Rather, commercial property owners typically have an expanded duty of care because the vast majority of lawful visitors on their land are “invitees”—in other words, people visiting specifically for the landowner’s financial benefit or the mutual benefit of both parties.
In addition to warning invitees about hazards they already know about and correcting hazards within a reasonable period after discovering them, commercial landowners may also be liable for injuries to invitees caused by hazards that they should have discovered—and subsequently warned the invitee about—through regular inspection of their property. For example, if a store owner does not assign anyone to regularly patrol aisles and that leads to a spill not being cordoned off or cleaned up for several hours, that owner may be liable for injuries a customer suffers from slipping on that spill even if they never had direct personal knowledge of its existence.
Of course, establishing whether a reasonable landowner would or should have known about a particular hazard can be far from simple, and in fact, may require extensive evidence drawn from multiple sources. Building a comprehensive claim along these lines can be extremely challenging in practice without guidance from a Sugar Land commercial property premises liability attorney.
Support from legal counsel can also be vital to constructing and filing a compelling claim within applicable filing deadlines. Under most circumstances, Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code § 16.003 gives injured people just two years after initially sustaining harm to begin any lawsuit they ever intend to file over that injury.
Someone who complies with this deadline, though, may be able to demand restitution for all past and future, economic and non-economic forms of harm they suffer as a result of their accident, including:
A qualified lawyer can go into further detail about recoverable damages in a particular commercial property premises liability claim in Sugar Land during a private initial meeting.
While commercial property owners often have more personal assets—or at least more insurance coverage—to put towards compensating customers for accidents on their land, actually getting them to pay for civil damages can be a time-consuming and immensely complicated process. Even if you have gotten a good result from a personal injury claim in the past, you will have unfortunately slim odds of succeeding with a case of this type without dependable legal representation.
Speaking with a Sugar Land commercial property premises liability lawyer can give you answers to important questions and confidence about what action you should take next. Call today to discuss your possible case.
Lone Star Injury Attorneys, PLLC
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