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Trip and fall; sounds like no big deal, right? Yet, don’t you know that there are thousands of people who get hurt from these accidents each year? With such significantly high number, it may be difficult to judge whether these trip and fall accidents are the fault of the injured person himself/herself, or if they are the responsibility of other parties.

It seems that everybody lately has been either slipping and falling, or tripping and falling, and blaming these accidents to other people, such as a neighbor, employers, maintenance crew, product manufacturers, establishment owners, residential property owners, council or government entities, and so on.

Many individuals are complaining about being hurt or injured in another person’s premises just so they could have a premise liability claim, and recover money from the parties they are accusing legally responsible.

Slip, or trip and fall are the most common cause of action for a premise liability. In determining legal responsibility for this type of claim, three important elements should be present: ownership, possession and control. The individual who possess these three elements may have responsibility for any injuries suffered by another person from a hazardous condition within their premises.

However, suing somebody over a premise liability is not as easy as people assume. There are strict guidelines in establishing liability, and this is evaluated on a case-by-case basis. An object left on the floor or an uneven patch on the road doesn’t always mean responsibility of a person or entity. Liability depends upon certain circumstances or causes.

Although property owners are subject to a certain degree of duty of care, it is not always their fault when someone trips and fall within their property, especially when such accident could have been avoided by a standard reasonable person. There are faulty conditions on the road that an ordinary person would be able to notice and avoid.

So when a property owner is held legally responsible for a trip and fall? The court or jury must be able to evaluate some of the following major considerations in holding liability against a proprietor:

• There was a harmful or faulty condition on the premises

• The defect or faulty condition within the premises either was created by the owner himself/herself, or at least had been noticed by the owner yet he/she failed to take action even after having a reasonable time to do so.

• The owner had knowledge, or should have had knowledge, regarding the faulty condition

• The property owner owed some duty of care to the injured individual

• The property owner breached that duty of care

• The breach of duty was the proximate or actual cause of the trip and fall accident

• The accident caused injuries or damages to the individual

The difficulty in proving a genuine trip and fall case comes in the question whether the owner knew or should have been aware of the defective condition. This is where trip and fall lawyers come in handy. They will be able to help plaintiffs prove liability against property owners.

Eighty percent of motor vehicle crashes in the United States involve distracted drivers, according to a government study that videotaped the drivers of 100 vehicles in northern Virginia and Washington D.C.

Researchers reviewed thousands of hours of video and data from sensor monitors linked to the drivers and discovered that driver distractions such as talking on a cell phone, eating, and applying make-up, can significantly increase the risk of a crash.

Of the popular multi-tasking activities drivers engage in while on the road, reaching for a moving object while driving showed the greatest potential for a crash - increasing the risk by nine times. Reading, applying make-up, and dialing a cell phone each increased the risk of a car accident by about three times.

Additionally, the study revealed drowsy driving as a factor that could enhance the driver''s risk of a crash or near-crash by four to six times. Drowsy driving is frequently underreported in police crash investigations, according to the study's authors.

Under Ohio law, there is no liability if a person slips and falls on a natural accumulation of ice and / or snow. There are some exceptions. For example, if a business owner or homeowner shovels their snow they have a duty to shovel the snow with reasonable care. If they fail to use reasonable care, they could be liable.

The same is true for removal of ice. If a business owner or homeowner voluntarily attempts to remove ice, once again, it must be removed with reasonable care. If reasonable care is not used, there could be liability.

If a person slips and falls on an unnatural accumulation of ice, there also could be liability. An unnatural accumulation of ice would occur if water freezes on a sidewalk or parking lot after accumulating in an unnatural way. I handled a case a few years ago where ice formed in a parking lot as a result of water shooting out from a basement opening due to a faulty sump pump. I was able to successfully settle the case by arguing that the ice was formed unnaturally.

A 2 1/2-year-old boy and his mother recently won a $856,000 jury award in a case involving a dog attack on a Hawaiian beach. The verdict is thought to be the highest in the state's history for a dog bite case.

The Attack
Keeton Manguso weighed only 24 pounds when a Rottweiler owned by Mariko Bereday attacked him on the beach. He suffered multiple bites to the hip, back and arms and received stitches for his injuries.

Jim Bickerton, attorney for Manguso and his mother, Veronica Tomooka, said a former University of Hawaii football player had to punch the dog in the head to get it to stop attacking the boy.
The dog's owner denied claims that her dog attacked the boy, despite photos of his injuries, and said she would appeal the verdict.

Previous Citation
However, Hawaiian Humane Society records from 2003 showed that Bereday had received five warnings and one citation for not keeping her dog on a leash.
"It really highlights that the rules that say when a dog is out it public it should be leashed are there for a very good reason. Too many people want to enjoy the pleasure of running with their dogs at the beach and don't stop to think about the risk that poses, especially to young children," said Bickerton.

Bereday was sentenced to five days in jail when her dog attacked another child, a 4-year-old girl, five days after it attacked Manguso. She was also cited with a $2000 fine and the dog was ordered to be put down. That case is being appealed.

(Source: azcentral.com)

Two U.S. senators, motivated by a bus crash that killed five college baseball players, announced a proposal Thursday that would require seat belts on long-haul buses.

The proposed legislation also would require changes to bus windows that would help stop passengers from being thrown out of the vehicles during accidents.

Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, also want better training for drivers and stronger bus roofs that will hold up in rollover accidents. They said the legislation would reduce deaths and injuries in bus accidents.

They announced their proposal nearly eight months after a bus carrying Bluffton University's baseball team toppled off an overpass in Atlanta. Five players, the bus driver and his wife died.

Some of the players killed and those who were injured were thrown out of the bus and pinned underneath it. The bus did not have not seat belts.

The proposal applies to motorcoaches that travel from state to state, not city buses or school buses. (AP)