Hurt on
someone else's property.
Premises liability is the law of injuries caused by unsafe conditions on property someone else owns or controls, from a broken stair to a dark parking garage. A claim typically turns on what the owner knew or should have known about the danger and what a reasonable owner would have done about it.
This page is general information, not legal advice for your situation. It does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every state's rules are different, and timelines can be short, so anyone with specific questions should consult a lawyer licensed in their state.
What does premises liability cover?
Premises liability covers injuries caused by the condition of a property or by a failure to keep it reasonably secure. Falls make up a large share of these cases, and slip and fall claims turn mainly on whether the owner created the hazard or knew or should have known about it in time to fix it.
Claims also arise from foreseeable crimes that reasonable security would likely have prevented. Swimming pools and failing structures account for two more groups of cases.
Who is responsible for the condition of a property?
Responsibility generally follows control. An owner that occupies its own property is responsible for the property's condition. Where a business leases space, the tenant typically controls the interior, though the lease can shift some duties in either direction.
A landlord that has handed space over to a tenant generally answers only for limited categories of hazards. Those include conditions in shared areas it controls and defects it promised in the lease or is required by law to repair. The landlord can also be liable for repairs it performed carelessly and for a hidden danger it knew about when the lease began, if the tenant could not reasonably discover it.
In condominiums and planned communities, the association that controls the shared spaces can answer for their condition. A property manager or a security company hired by the owner can share responsibility, depending on the duties it took on and how it carried them out.
How does the reason for being on the property affect a claim?
Why the injured person was there can shape the duty owed. Many states still scale that duty to the visitor's status, with business visitors owed the most care and trespassers the least. Other states apply one standard of reasonable care to everyone lawfully on the property.
Workers hurt on property their employer does not control can bring premises claims as well. A delivery driver injured by a collapsing loading dock at a customer's warehouse can pursue the warehouse's owner or operator while collecting workers' compensation benefits. The compensation insurer can then be repaid from any recovery.
Every state has some form of recreational use statute. These statutes generally limit the liability of an owner who allows people onto the land for free recreation, such as hiking or fishing. An owner who charges a fee can lose that protection, and so can one who willfully or maliciously fails to guard or warn against a danger.
How does the injured person's own conduct affect a claim?
Most states reduce a recovery by the injured person's share of the fault, and many cut it off entirely once that share reaches about half. A handful still bar recovery for any fault at all. States also differ on whether an open and obvious hazard can defeat a claim outright or counts only as one more fact in dividing the fault.
When does a crime on the property lead to a claim against the owner?
A claim against the owner generally requires a foreseeable crime and missing precautions that would likely have prevented it. Working lights and locks that close are typical examples. The attacker remains responsible for the crime itself, while the owner answers for its own failure to provide reasonable security.
States measure foreseeability in different ways. Some require earlier crimes of a similar kind. Others weigh the totality of the circumstances, including the neighborhood and the nature of the business. A few states balance how foreseeable the crime was against the burden of the security measure in question.
The owner's relationship to the injured person matters too. Landlords are commonly expected to take reasonable security measures in the common areas they control, including entrances and parking garages. Hotels owe guests reasonable security in many states.
How are swimming pool injuries handled?
Pool cases tend to turn on barriers and on the codes that govern pool safety. Many states and localities require fencing with self-closing, self-latching gates around pools, and a missing or broken barrier is frequently central to a claim involving a child.
Public pools and spas carry more requirements. State and local health codes commonly set rules for lifeguards and depth markings. Federal drain-cover standards, enforced by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, are meant to keep swimmers from being trapped by suction.
What happens when a structure or fixture fails?
When a structure or fixture fails, the claim typically turns on whether the owner inspected and maintained it with reasonable care. A deck that collapses or a railing that gives way points to how the structure was built and how it was kept up. Building codes govern construction, and property maintenance codes in many places govern upkeep.
Elevators and escalators are commonly maintained under contracts with service companies, which can share responsibility for a failure. In some states, the owner of an elevator or escalator is held to the heightened duty of care that applies to common carriers.
What evidence matters most in a premises liability claim?
The property's history is often the central evidence in these cases. Earlier complaints about the same hazard can establish that the owner knew about it. In security cases, police records of calls to the address can help show what crimes occurred there and what the owner should have anticipated.
The owner's own records come next. Maintenance logs and inspection reports document what was checked and when. Security contracts and staffing schedules identify who was supposed to be on duty, and surveillance video can capture what happened, though routine deletion cycles erase much of it within days or weeks.
What does personal injury counsel do in a premises liability case?
Counsel sends preservation letters early to the owner and to anyone else who controlled the property. A duty to preserve evidence can arise without any letter once litigation is reasonably anticipated, and the letters give written notice of what to keep. They also guard against routine deletion, and they ask that the condition be documented before any repair.
Counsel then determines who controlled the property. Deeds and leases establish ownership and occupancy, and management and security contracts identify who handled operations and security. Where a public entity owns or controls the property, counsel files any required notice of claim within its window.
Counsel frequently retains a security or engineering expert to assess what reasonable precautions or maintenance would have required. The broader process of evaluating an injury claim is set out in the personal injury overview.
How long do I have to bring a premises liability claim?
Each state sets its own deadline for an injury lawsuit, and that period is typically measured in years. Property owned or controlled by a city or another public entity changes the timetable, because a notice of claim is frequently due within weeks or a few months of the injury. Missing that notice can end a claim even while the lawsuit deadline remains open. Many states pause the lawsuit deadline while an injured child is a minor, though a notice of claim can still be due on the ordinary schedule. Counsel licensed in the state where the injury happened calculates each deadline, including when its clock starts.
Common questions
A landlord can be responsible for an attack in a garage it controls when the crime was foreseeable and reasonable security would likely have prevented it. Earlier similar crimes at or near the property tend to establish foreseeability, and repeated tenant complaints about broken gates or dark stairwells can show that the landlord knew its security was failing. An attacker's own fault does not by itself relieve the landlord of responsibility.
States differ on whether a jury can assign part of the fault to the attacker, and on whether an owner found partly at fault can still owe the whole loss. In some states the answers limit the owner to its own share of some or all damages, which can leave much of the loss uncollected when the attacker has no money. Other states hold the owner responsible for the full harm, often because the attack was the very risk that reasonable security was meant to address. Counsel evaluates the state's rules early, since they change what the claim is worth.
Most states treat trespassing children differently from adult trespassers under the attractive nuisance doctrine. An owner can be responsible to a child for an artificial condition posing a risk of death or serious injury where the owner knew or had reason to know children were likely to trespass. Liability also depends on the child being too young to recognize the danger and on the burden of removing it being slight compared with the risk. Courts divide on pools. Some apply the doctrine to an unfenced pool, while others treat the danger of water as obvious even to young children.
The claim is generally made against the friend, but the friend's insurer commonly pays it. Homeowners policies routinely include liability coverage for injuries to guests, and many also carry medical payments coverage that pays a limited amount of medical bills regardless of fault. The insurer typically defends the claim and pays any settlement within the policy limits. Renters policies often carry similar liability coverage for a tenant's home.
A code violation can help prove negligence, though its weight varies by state. Many states treat a violation as evidence of negligence that a jury weighs with everything else. In some, it can establish negligence on its own, or raise a presumption of it, if the code was meant to protect people like the injured person from that kind of injury. The violation still has to have caused the injury. Records from the local building department, including complaints and inspection reports, can show how long a violation went uncorrected.