California Premises Liability Lawyer

What a property owner owes you

California swept away the old categories of invitee, licensee and trespasser in Rowland v. Christian in 1968. Instead of a rigid status test, the standard is ordinary care under the circumstances: a property owner or occupier must use reasonable care to keep the property reasonably safe and to warn of dangers that are not obvious.

Courts weigh a set of factors from Rowland in deciding whether a duty existed at all, including how foreseeable the harm was, how certain the injury is, how closely the conduct is connected to the injury, and the burden on the owner of guarding against it. In practice, foreseeability does most of the work.

Who can be liable is broader than just the person on the deed:

• The owner of the property.
• A tenant or business that occupies and controls the space, which is usually the right defendant in a retail fall.
• A property management company responsible for maintenance.
• A janitorial or maintenance contractor whose work created or failed to address the hazard.
• A general contractor or subcontractor on a construction site.
• A public entity, under a different statute and a much shorter deadline. See below.

Notice: the element that decides the case

An owner is not automatically liable because something dangerous was on the floor. You generally have to prove one of three things.

1. The owner created the hazard. An employee mopped and left no sign, or a display was built so that merchandise fell into the aisle.
2. The owner had actual notice. Someone told them, a prior complaint exists, or an employee saw it.
3. The owner had constructive notice. The condition existed long enough that a reasonably careful owner inspecting the property would have found and fixed it.

Constructive notice is where the fight happens, and it turns on time. A puddle that formed thirty seconds before you walked through it will probably not support liability. The same puddle sitting there for an hour will. Proving which one it was depends on evidence you cannot get later:

• Surveillance video. Most retailers run on loops that overwrite within 14 to 30 days, and some far sooner. A written preservation demand sent in the first days is often the difference between a provable case and a dismissed one.
• Sweep logs and inspection records. Many chains document floor inspections on a schedule. A gap in the log, or a log signed in advance, is powerful.
• The incident report the store prepared, which frequently contains employee observations that never appear again.
• Employee statements, taken before turnover. Retail staff change jobs quickly.
• The physical characteristics of the substance. Tracked-through footprints, dried edges, a cart wheel path or dirt in a spill all indicate time elapsed.
• Prior incident history at the same location, which is discoverable and establishes the hazard was known.

The cases we see most

Slip and fall on a wet or slick surface

Grocery store spills, leaking refrigerator cases, freshly mopped floors with no warning cone, tracked-in rain at an entrance with no mats, and overwatered landscaping draining across a walkway.

Trip and fall on a defective walking surface

Raised sidewalk slabs, broken asphalt in parking lots, unmarked single steps, transitions between flooring types, loose mats and extension cords across walkways. Expect an open-and-obvious argument, which is a comparative fault argument rather than a complete defense in California.

Stairs and handrails

Inconsistent riser heights, missing or loose handrails, worn nosings and inadequate lighting. Building code requirements give these cases a measurable standard, and a code violation is persuasive evidence of negligence. An expert measuring the stairway before it is repaired is frequently decisive.

Inadequate or negligent security

An assault in a parking structure, an apartment complex with broken gates or dead lighting, a bar or venue with no crowd control. These claims require foreseeability, usually shown through prior similar crimes at or near the property, and California courts scrutinize the burden of the precautions the plaintiff says were required. They are difficult cases and they are viable where the history is there.

Falling merchandise and unsafe displays

Overhead stock in warehouse-format stores, improperly stacked goods and shelving not restrained. Often the clearest liability picture in premises work, because the stacking itself was the owner's conduct.

Dangerous conditions in rental housing

Broken stair treads, non-functioning smoke detectors, defective water heaters, mold from unrepaired leaks and inoperable door locks. A landlord's duty to maintain habitable premises overlaps with ordinary negligence here, and documented repair requests are the backbone of the case.

When the hazard is on public property

A fall on a city sidewalk, in a public park, at a government building, on a transit platform or in a school is a different claim with a different clock.

Government Code section 835 allows a claim for a dangerous condition of public property where the entity either created the condition or had actual or constructive notice of it with enough time to protect against it. Government Code section 830.6 provides a design immunity defense where a plan was approved in advance by a qualified official, which public entities invoke routinely and which can be overcome in defined circumstances.

The deadline is the critical part. A written administrative claim is generally due within six months of the incident under Government Code section 911.2, and after a written rejection you generally have six months to sue. A sidewalk case that would have been straightforward at two months is often unsalvageable at eight. Sidewalk responsibility can also be divided between a city and the adjacent property owner depending on local ordinance, so both need to be identified early.

What to do after a fall

1. Report it before you leave, and ask for an incident report. A fall never reported to the business is a fall the business will later say never happened.
2. Photograph the hazard immediately, from multiple distances and angles, with something in frame for scale. Within an hour the spill is mopped and the sidewalk is patched.
3. Photograph your shoes, including the soles, because footwear is the first thing blamed.
4. Get names: the employee you reported it to, the manager on duty, and any witness. Ask witnesses for phone numbers directly.
5. Ask whether the area is covered by camera, and note where the cameras are. This supports a preservation demand that specifies what to keep.
6. Seek medical care promptly, and describe the mechanism accurately, including what your foot did and what you struck.
7. Contact a lawyer within days, not months, so a preservation letter goes out before the video rolls off.