Elevators

It is required by law that all elevators, other than hand elevators and power and hand dumbwaiters, and all escalators must be inspected every six months and must comply with American National Standard Safety Codes. If an elevator or escalator is involved in an accident, it must be removed from service immediately until inspected by a certified inspector. Once it is inspected, it may not be placed back into service until inspected again. Any deviation from this rule and repairs the elevator is made or it is placed back into service after an accident without inspection, any claimant from the accident is entitled to a rebuttable assumption that the owner was negligent in its maintenance. The exception to this is if there is no evidence, either before or after a fall, which the elevator failed to function properly, even if the owner violated the statute by failing to allow inspections. 

Because elevators and escalators are mechanical devices, they unavoidably break down and sometimes become dangerous and cause injury without negligence on the part of the owner. Owners must have been able to discover the problem prior to the malfunction in order to hold the owner liable for the resulting injuries. For example, when a malfunction occurs due to the failure of an axle bearing, and there may be no way to predict the bearing’s life expectancy or when it will give out. In this case, the owner may not liable for the claimant’s injury. However, if visual inspections during routine maintenance of escalators or elevator may have revealed a problem, then an issue exists that may cause the owner to be liable for an injury resulting from a subsequent malfunction.

Injuries due to automatic doors on the premises are more difficult to prove owner liability. Owners do not have an extraordinary duty of care in regards to these. If an automatic door unexpectedly closes, causing injury to a customer, a store owner is held liable only if there was prior knowledge of a problem with the door or failed to have the doors inspected in a reasonable manner. If a walker is used to go through a revolving door and someone is injured during this process, the owner is not responsible unless there is evidence that the door malfunctioned. Automatic doors may open in the wrong direction until manually reset. If this is not done, then the owner may be held liable for an injury that was caused by the doors opening incorrectly.

If the child is on the property as a guest of the owner, the child’s parents cannot recover when he drowns in the owner’s pool, even if there is no gate on the pool. This is due to the parents’ knowledge of the pool’s existence and it is an open and obvious condition wherein the child is not a trespasser, eliminating the attractive nuisance doctrine. If the child is expected to be supervised by their parents, an owner is not responsible for a child’s drowning, particularly when there is no defect in the pool itself. If proper equipment or supervision is not provided while guests are using a private pool, owners may be held liable for injury. For example, failure to repair broken lights creates issues as to the responsibility of the owners for the drowning of a teenager during an evening party.

Public Pools. Public facilities are potentially liable for injuries when they fail to provide boundaries, such as lifelines, between deep and shallow ends as well as qualified lifeguards on duty as required by county regulations, even if the injured party is unaware of the failure to provide these safety precautions. If there is evidence that the lifeguard has failed to supervise swimmers in a proper manner, the public facility may also be held liable.  

Personal Responsibility. If you, or someone you love, dives into a pool or lake and is injured when his head strikes the bottom, there is potential liability for an owner. The owner’s liability is extremely limited when the injured party is negligent by not checking the water’s depth, dives into a pool with black water without checking the depth, or is familiar with the depth and dives in anyway. However, if a diving board is present at a pool, the owner does have a duty to warn guests as to hidden perils of diving, such as the water under the board is only four foot deep.

Certain states, such as Georgia, have special legislation passed to encourage owners of land to make land and water areas available to the public, that limit the owner’s liability toward persons entering the premises for recreational purposes. If you have been injured in public or private pools, lakes or other related areas, an experienced premises liability attorney will be able to assist you with the laws in your area.

Stadiums

Patrons at sporting and stadium events expect to find discarded items on the ground and cannot usually recover for slipping and falling on them. Owners of facilities that hold large sporting and stadium events are not liable as other businesses to keep the premises clean. Not all patrons at these events consciously clean up after themselves or others and constantly throw food, beverages and containers on the ground. The great hardship on the stadium owner to require constant inspections and removal of all debris and trash would negate any profitability to ownership. Patrons may not usually recover for slipping and falling on the debris of others in these facilities.

DISCLAIMER: The information you obtain at our firm web site is not, nor is it intended to be, legal advice. It is recommended that you should consult an attorney for individual advice regarding your own situation.