If you’ve been injured in a slip and fall accident in Florida, time is of the essence. While you may think you have plenty of time to file a lawsuit, taking immediate action can significantly impact the strength and value of your case. This post, written by a highly experienced Orlando personal injury lawyer, will guide you through the critical time considerations and urgent steps you need to take to protect your legal rights.
In Florida, injured victims must file slip and fall (or premises liability) cases within two years from the date of the accident. There are limited exceptions including that your injury didn’t show symptoms for a long time, or you were a minor at the time of the accident. (This is represented a change in the law, passed in 2023; previously the statute of limitations for Florida slip and fall cases was four years.) As an Orlando personal injury lawyer who handles many slip and fall cases, many changes to the law in 2023, besides just the shorter statute of limitations, highly concern me as far as their impact on slip and fall victims. We are still accepting Orlando premises liability cases, including slip and fall, but we have to be much more careful when evaluating the facts, before deciding to accept any new client. We dearly wish that were not the situation, but Florida’s personal injury (tort) law changed dramatically in 2023 — so we have no choice.
Urgent Time-Sensitive Issues In Florida Slip & Fall Cases
Although the now two year statute of limitations in Florida slip & fall cases technically gives you plenty of time to initiate legal proceedings, as a practical matter you still need to take URGENT action in your case to maximize the potential value of your damages. Delaying medical treatment even one week could hurt your case. Further, the longer you delay treatment, the worse the impact on your legal case. So you need medical treatment urgently, no matter what. In addition to quick medical diagnosis and treatment, you also need to take immediate steps to preserve evidence in your case. The potential evidence varies from case to case, but the most common includes: (1) taking photos as quickly as possible of the area where you fell, including close view and wide angle shots from all different directions; (2) taking photos of your injuries; (3) saving any physical evidence of your injuries, such as soiled or bloodied clothing; (4) talking to any witnesses and getting all of their contact information; and (5) sending the appropriate preservation of evidence letters to any and all potential defendants and insurance companies.
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Your Burden Of Proof In Slip & Fall Lawsuits Is Why You MUST Act Quickly
If you fail to get medical treatment quickly, many Orlando slip and fall lawyers will decline your case, despite the fact that the statute of limitations (legal deadline for filing suit) is 2 years. The reason is that the practical difficulties of proving that your accident caused specific injuries becomes much more difficult as time passes between the date of the accident & the medical treatment. Understand that the defendant always argues, in slip and fall cases, that the accident did not cause your injuries. People get injured all of the time in life. Who is to say that your injuries were caused by this accident? How can you prove that fact? Remember, the plaintiff has the burden of proof in all slip and fall, premises liability, and other injury cases. Part of that burden requires, as a practical matter, that you received treatment quickly. Expert doctors can often determine whether an accident caused an injury, but their testimony is subject to attack, and often not crystal clear. So the bottom line is that, if you are reading this, and you were injured in a slip and fall accident, you need to go receive treatment NOW.
The Urgency Of Preserving Important Slip & Fall Accident Evidence
You also need to preserve evidence as quickly as possible because, again, you will have the burden of proving three major issues, including (1) liability (fault), (2) causation (meaning that the accident caused your injuries) and (3) damages (generally the extent of your injuries). To sustain your burden of proof in slip and fall cases, you simply must have evidence. And evidence tends to have a bad habit of quickly disappearing if not quickly preserved. Also defendant companies have no legal duty to preserve evidence (including video camera recordings) unless they you have given them clear notice that a lawsuit might be filed. So you need to act very quickly so that the defendant is notified, in the proper format, that they are obligated to preserve evidence. Until that is done, they are free to lose or even destroy evidence that might be critical to your case.
Photographs Are MISSION CRITICAL!!
Photographs of the accident scene are absolutely critical to many slip and fall and premises liability cases. Generally you need to take photographs of the accident scene VERY QUICKLY. particularly since the business might repair whatever caused you to fall, or the environment may change for any number of reasons.
Call Or Text Me ASAP!
There are many other aspects of your case that need to be handled quickly. So, if you have been injured in an Orlando slip and fall accident, or any premises liability case anywhere in the state of Florida, I urge you to contact me at your very earliest opportunity so that I can get the ball rolling on how to best maximize the value of your slip and fall injury case.
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