A fall on someone else’s property is rarely just clumsiness. A wet floor with no warning sign, a broken stair, a dark stairwell, or a cracked walkway can put a person in the hospital, and California law holds property owners responsible for keeping their premises reasonably safe. From shopping centers and apartment complexes to grocery stores and parking structures across the East Bay, when an owner’s carelessness causes a fall, the injured person can pursue compensation.
Mirador Law handles premises liability claims throughout Alameda County. Led by former San Francisco public defenders Megan Burns and Emily Dahm, the firm brings more than 40 years of combined experience and close to a hundred jury trials, including two of California’s Top 50 plaintiff verdicts for 2024.
What you have to show
A property owner is not automatically responsible for every fall. Under California law, including the duty of care in Civil Code section 1714 and the standard set out in jury instruction CACI 1003, the question is whether the owner knew or should have known about a dangerous condition and failed to fix it or warn about it within a reasonable time. We build that case with incident reports, maintenance records, surveillance video, and witness accounts, much of which can disappear if no one preserves it.
What a claim can cover
Falls commonly cause broken hips and wrists, shoulder injuries, and head injuries. A claim can pursue medical care, lost income, future treatment, and the effect of the injury on daily life. California’s pure comparative negligence rule means that if you are found partly at fault, your recovery is reduced by your share rather than barred.
Deadlines
The general deadline to file is two years from the date of the fall under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. If the property is owned by a public entity, you generally have only six months to file an administrative claim under Government Code section 911.2.
A look at how these cases unfold
The following hypothetical examples illustrate how these cases can unfold. They are not based on any specific client and are provided for educational purposes only. A shopper slips on a spill in a grocery aisle that staff had been told about but had not cleaned or marked. The store argues the shopper was not watching. Store records and video showing how long the spill sat unaddressed establish that the store had notice and time to act.
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