So you were out for a relaxing meal and slipped on a restaurant floor. Who is to blame ?
Which party is responsible for you slipping in a restaurant is different depending on how the slip occurred, where it occurred, and why it occurred. There are many environmental variables that can cause someone to slip and fall depending on where you are in or around the restaurant.
There are many laws and regulations that restaurants are required to meet that should prevent customers from being harmed while on the premises, but people are still injured all of the time while eating at restaurants.
If this happens and it is found that the restaurant was not meeting the requirements of those laws and regulations then it is likely that the restaurant in question will have to pay a substantial fine to the government, and will also possibly be shut down pending an investigation of their practices before being allowed to re-open when they do meet the standards of the law and the regulations of various food safety and building safety regulations and codes.
The problem with this set of circumstances is that the injured party receives no justice or monetary recompense for the injury they have sustained due to the restaurant’s faulty practices. Thankfully, that has also been considered by the law. Any person that has been injured while on the premises of a restaurant is entitled to pursue a legal case against that establishment to acquire that monetary recompense for the damages they have suffered.
What kind of damages are restaurants responsible for?
If while on the premises of a restaurant, you suffer a physical injury or you later suffer an illness from the food they provided to you then you are entitled to monetary compensation for your pain and suffering. The way this situation is handled is very similar to how any other type of injury is handled.
You must first prove that the injury or illness you have suffered or are suffering from was caused by the restaurant or by something they provided to you. This could be anything from slipping and falling to food poisoning. If your interaction with a restaurant has caused you to be injured or to suffer in a debilitating way then you are entitled to monetary compensation.
Restaurants are required to take every reasonable precaution to prevent their customers from receiving any kind of injury while on their premises.
They are responsible for anything that happens to a customer on their premises unless it is perpetrated by another customer. If they fail to take those precautions then they are considered to be negligent and are therefore responsible for the consequences and will be required to compensate any of their customers that are harmed due to their negligence.
If you slip and fall because the floor is wet and slippery with no way of knowing that beforehand, then the restaurant is responsible for not warning you away from that area and therefore any injuries you sustained during that fall are their responsibility to pay for.
If you decide to order food to go from your local fast-food place of choice and then proceed to get food poisoning because the food they provided was not prepared in a place that was up to the required food safety standards or they used harmful materials in its creation, then you are still entitled to compensation even though the event did not take place inside of the restaurant. This is because you were still harmed by your interaction with the restaurant, in this case by the food that they provided to you.
What kind of compensation can you get?
You are legally entitled to receive monetary compensation for any medical treatment you require as a result of the injuries you sustained from these events as well as any missed wages or loss of property you suffer if the injury is severe enough and to a part of your body that keeps you from performing your work duties.
This type of monetary compensation is called “compensatory damages” because they are meant to compensate you, the victim, for any trouble you suffered that the offending party, the restaurant, is responsible for.
There are many kinds of compensatory damages that you may be eligible for depending on how the event occurred and how it impacted your life. If you suffered particularly severe mental anguish then you may be eligible for compensatory damages regarding pain and suffering or emotional distress.
If your interpersonal relationships were negatively impacted or dissolved as a result of those injuries then you are likely eligible for “loss of consortium” damages which usually refer to the relationship between spouses, but is also sometimes used to refer to a relationship between a parent and child as well.
If you are unable to partake of your usual hobbies due to the injuries you received then you are probably eligible for “loss of enjoyment” damages. These usually refer to hobbies and things you do that make you happy, but it can also refer to activities that are necessary for maintaining your lifestyle like exercising.
What can you do about this situation?
The whole point of compensatory damages is to compensate you for having suffered due to the restaurant’s negligence or possibly malicious intentions. This means that a monetary value must be placed on everything and the court will attempt to determine what that monetary value should be. Sometimes this ends up being a rather large amount of monetary compensation, but sometimes it is wholly insufficient. Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do about that part, the court will decide what it decides one way or another.
That said, you can do things to affect the outcome of this situation and mitigate some of the suffering or loss you have to endure as a result of the circumstances surrounding your injury. One of the most important things you can do is seek legal aid.
An injury lawyer will be able to assist you in pursuing a case against the restaurant and will know exactly what you are entitled to receive from them. They will also know how to go about ensuring that you get the most out of the situation as you possibly can and they will be incentivized to do so because you will be paying them.
A lot of the time, payment for an accident lawyer will come from whatever they win for you in the case. This is called a “contingency fee” and more reasonable trip and fall attorneys won’t charge you anything at all if they lose the case on your behalf. A good slip and fall lawyer will win the case if you are truly deserving and shouldn’t have any trouble getting you the monetary compensation that you deserve, which means you can spend your time focusing on healing and getting your life back in order so you can put this all behind you and move on with your life.
If you want to assist in winning your case, the best thing you can do once you have contacted your lawyer and explained the situation is to gather evidence. You want documentation detailing the injuries you are currently dealing with as a result of your interaction with the restaurant and how much of an expense it will be to deal with them going forward. You can get pretty much all of those details by visiting a medical professional after the injuries are sustained.
Another thing you can look into is taking pictures of the area around you right after you have been injured so that you have evidence of the environment that you were in when you sustained the injury. If there is anything readily visible in the area that could be a cause for the situation then you will want evidence that it existed. This will prevent any covering up that might be attempted by the responsible party as you will have concrete evidence of its existence from the time of the injury itself.
If you are up to it at the time, you may even want to file an incident report with the police. If you explain the situation they should provide you with forms to fill out on which you can describe the circumstances of your injury so that there will be an official written record of the event which will give your case a lot of credibility that it otherwise wouldn’t have.
Who should you contact for legal aid?
If you have been injured in a restaurant in Pennsylvania, especially Philadelphia, PA, then you should contact Philly Injury Lawyer. They embody the contingency fee payment method and are very committed to victory in the courtroom. They are confident in their abilities and are perfectly willing to take on your case without any need to incentivize them with monetary compensation, they’ll either get paid when they win your case or not at all which should work quite well for you as you get to keep the entire situation risk free.