Our attorneys have been assisting the Clark County
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Slip and fall accidents account for over one million emergency room visits each year. Slip and fall accidents are also the leading cause of occupational injuries for employees over 55 and the leading cause of workers’ compensation claims. If you or a loved one suffered injuries in a slip and fall accident, contact DiMarco | Araujo | Montevideo to schedule a free case evaluation with a Las Vegas slip and fall attorney.
Our Las Vegas slip and fall attorneys at DiMarco | Araujo | Montevideo have been helping clients receive the compensation and justice they deserve since 1979. Our team is licensed in both Nevada and California, which allows us to represent a wide range of clients across state lines. As a testimony to their commitment to excellence, the legal community has awarded DiMarco | Araujo | Montevideo an AV rating on Martindale-Hubbell – the highest rating attorneys can obtain for their ethical standards and legal ability. The firm has also earned an A+ rating on Better Business Bureau (BBB) and were selected as Preeminent Lawyers, which less than 5% of all attorneys in the United States receive. Our firm is dedicated to attaining maximum recovery and providing our clients peace of mind. Contact us today for a free consultation.
“Wonderful experience! Staff are very professional. Attorney gets to know you and treat you with respect. Honest firm that works hard for you!”
– Madman N.
“Everyone I spoke with was extremely patient and helpful. They were happy to explain the things I did not understand, which was quite a bit, and they always responded quickly. Fabulous 5 star service!”
– YeLonda G.
Slip and fall injuries can potentially cause severe injuries like bone fractures and traumatic brain injuries. These wounds can, in turn, lead to lost income from missed time at work while recovering, lost earning potential from permanent disability, and significant pain and suffering.
Our Las Vegas personal injury lawyers can help build a strong case and handle a client’s legal matters while he or she recovers and arranges for expert witnesses like safety experts and medical professionals to testify on the client’s behalf. The attorney can also help navigate insurance claims, workers’ compensation claims, and the potential for legal action against multiple defendants. Ultimately, hiring an attorney increases the chances of a plaintiff succeeding with a slip and fall case and will likely secure more compensation than the plaintiff could have secured on his or her own.
Slip and fall accidents can occur in a wide variety of places in and around the Las Vegas area. The reality is that anywhere property owners have control over their premises is a location where a slip and fall accident could occur. Negligent property owners and property managers are everywhere around the city.
Some of the most common slip and fall incidents that occur in the Las Vegas area happened at:
Regardless of where a slip and fall incident occurs, we encourage you to reach out to legal assistance as soon as possible. Sometimes, these incidents happen in areas where the victim knows the property owner or manager, and this might discourage them from reaching out for assistance.
However, we do not want you to think of filing a personal injury claim as being against a friend or family member. Rather, you file a claim to help ensure your long-term health and well-being. In most situations, the claim gets filed against an insurance company, not a family or friend.
Property owners have a duty to ensure the safety of their premises, particularly in areas where others have the right to be or where the property owner reasonably expects a person to be. This includes business owners, property managers, those who operate apartment complexes, as well as private residence owners. One of these duties is to ensure that common causes of slip and fall incidents are prevented or taken care of when a problem comes to light.
Some of the most common and preventable causes of slip and fall incidents in Las Vegas include:
The following common slip and fall injuries often require extensive medical care for a victim and, in some situations, could lead to long-term disabilities:
The overall severity of a slip and fall injury will vary depending on several factors, including the relative health of the victim as well as their age. For example, elderly individuals may be more prone to significant bone fractures, dislocations, or brakes than younger individuals. Additionally, those with a pre-existing bone or joint condition could suffer from serious injuries due to a slip and fall incident.
One of the complexities of slip and fall injury claims is adequately explaining the severity of the injury to the insurance company or a personal injury jury. What may, on the surface, seem like a relatively minor injury may actually be much more severe than people understand. A skilled slip and fall accident lawyer in Las Vegas can help injury victims explain the severity of their injury to the insurance company or personal injury jury.
When slip and fall injuries occur in the workplace, an injured employee in Las Vegas can file for workers’ compensation benefits for medical expense coverage and weekly benefits until he or she can return to work. Workers’ compensation can also provide lifetime benefits if an injured employee develops a permanent disability from a slip and fall accident.
Proving liability for a slip and fall incident involves establishing four separate elements of negligence, some of which are harder to prove than others. These four elements include:
In the event you sustain a slip and fall injury caused by the negligence of a property owner in the Las Vegas area, you should be able to recover various types of compensation for your losses. At DiMarco | Araujo | Montevideo, we have a track record of success in recovering compensation on behalf of premises liability victims, and we always strive to recover economic and non-economic damages.
Economic damages associated with a slip and fall incident revolve around calculable costs that a victim endures as a result of the incident. Our team will gather any bills, receipts, and invoices you receive to properly add up the following types of losses:
Non-economic damages associated with a Las Vegas slip and fall incident are not as easily measurable as the economic costs just mentioned. These are the types of losses that revolve around what we consider pain and suffering damages. Specifically, we want to recover compensation for our clients’ physical pain and suffering, emotional and psychological distress, and loss of enjoyment of life resulting from the slip and fall incident.
Our team will use various methods to help adequately calculate these total losses based on the total economic damages. This often means using a multiplier method that takes the total economic damages and multiplies that by a set number, usually a number ranging from two to five. For example, suppose a slip and fall accident victim sustains $50,000 worth of medical bills and lost wages. Injury attorneys could use a multiplier of “three” to reach a non-economic damage total of $150,000, bringing the total damage request to $200,000.
The time frame immediately following a slip and fall incident as well as the days and weeks after the injury occurs are crucial. There are various steps individuals can take, maybe not necessarily in this exact order, to help ensure their well-being and improve their chances of recovering full compensation.
In the state of Nevada, there are comparative negligence laws that are used to determine compensation amounts if there are multiple parties at fault. Under these laws, even an individual who is partially responsible for causing their own injuries may still be able to recover compensation, up to a certain limit.
Under the modified comparative negligence system in Nevada, individuals can recover compensation if they are less than 50% responsible for causing the incident. Any individual 50% or more at fault will be unable to recover compensation.
The total amount of compensation a person recovers will be reduced depending on their percentage of fault for the incident. For example, let us suppose an individual sustains $100,000 worth of medical bills and lost wages as a result of a premises liability incident. However, let us also suppose that a jury finds the victim 25% responsible for their own injury in the incident. In this theoretical situation, the individual would receive $75,000 and not the full $100,000 to account for their percentage of fault.
The vast majority of injury claims, including those involving slip and fall incidents, get resolved through settlements with insurance carriers. However, that is not always the case. The reality is that insurance carriers have one goal in mind, and that is to limit how much compensation they pay you. The more they pay you, the less they have in their coffers, and that is not necessarily good for business. However, you need compensation, so you should approach settlement offers with caution.
Please speak to your personal injury lawyer if you receive any settlement offer from an insurance carrier. The first few offers made by the insurance carrier are typically far below what you should actually receive, but many people accept these low offers so they can get their compensation and have the claim over with. Accepting an early settlement offer could mean leaving money on the table when it comes to your recovery.
A common misconception individuals have about injury claims is that the insurance company is there to protect them. The reality is that insurance companies have one goal in mind, and that is to limit how much compensation they pay out to injury victims, even if the injury victim was not at fault for the injury.
Insurance claims adjusters are very good at their jobs, and they are likely going to seem friendly. The claims adjuster may even engage in small talk to lighten the mood and to get a person into a talkative mode, but you need to be wary of this. Insurance claims adjusters will likely call very soon after the incident occurs, well before you know the full impacts of the incident.
We strongly encourage you to let the insurance claims adjusters know that you have an attorney and that all communication should go through your legal counsel. If you do speak to an insurance company, you need to stick to the facts of the case and not engage in any added small talk with the claims adjuster. Do not take any “guesses” About the facts of the case. Make sure the insurance claims adjuster knows that you are seeking medical treatment. Do not talk about your recovery process with the claims adjuster.
The best course of action when contacted by insurance companies after a slip and fall incident is to direct the caller to your slip and fall injury attorney in Las Vegas.
It is crucial for slip and fall victims in Las Vegas to file their claims as soon as possible. In Nevada, the personal injury statute of limitations is two years from the date an injury occurs. This means a Las Vegas slip and fall accident victim has a two-year window with which to file their claim against the alleged negligent party. Failing to do so within this time frame will generally mean the victim becomes unable to recover any compensation for their losses.
Additionally, property owners typically have insurance companies to handle these types of claims. Each insurance company will have its own reporting deadline that claimants must be aware of as they begin this process of seeking compensation for their injuries.
We encourage you to reach out to a skilled slip and fall accident lawyer in Las Vegas who can help ensure the claim gets filed on time with the insurance companies and at the civil court level.
Paying for a slip and fall injury lawyer in Nevada does not have to be impossible. In fact, it should be easy. Our team handles slip and fall cases in Las Vegas on a contingency fee basis. This means a few things for our clients. First, no client pays any upfront or out-of-pocket costs related to their case. They will not pay any legal fees until after we successfully recover compensation on their behalf. The final legal fee will be a percentage of the settlement or jury verdict.
In the event we do not win your case, you pay absolutely nothing. We believe that this type of fee arrangement helps individuals hold at-fault parties accountable regardless of their current financial situation.
One factor you may not think about related to your claim is your online presence. We know that social media is an everyday part of life now. In fact, most people do not think twice about sharing information about their lives through Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, or some other social media network. However, posting on social media can significantly jeopardize your Las Vegas slip and fall accident claim.
Anything you post online can be used against you, and you may not even be aware of some of the things an insurance carrier will look for as they seek a reason to deny your claim. For example, simply posting about taking your kids to the beach or a baseball game could jeopardize your entire claim if you have said your injuries are relatively severe.
We encourage you, at least for the duration of your claim, to refrain from posting about the case on social media. It would be beneficial if you took a break from social media altogether until after your claim concludes. Even if you have your privacy settings at the highest level possible, there are still ways for other individuals to see what you post privately.
A successful slip and fall accident claim can potentially lead to compensation for medical expenses, lost income, property damage, and pain and suffering. If you or a loved one suffered injuries in a slip and fall accident, contact DiMarco | Araujo | Montevideo today at (702) 466-1492 to schedule a free case evaluation with a Las Vegas slip and fall accident attorney.