Property owners have a legal duty to ensure the sidewalks and parking lots are free of hazards to avoid accidents such as slip and fall that may lead to severe injuries like broken arms, shattered wrist, and a broken hip. As a result of your injury, you may be dealing with overwhelming medical expenses, time off from work and the need for ongoing care and treatment.

After sustaining injuries in a slip and fall accident in a parking lot, you may be wondering, was the parking lot public property, maintained by the county or city? Or was the lot owned, managed, and maintained by a private individual or business?

In general, the majority of parking lots are privately owned, and the person responsible for your slip and fall is the one responsible for maintaining the parking lot.

1. To hold the owner of the parking lot liable for your injuries, there must be proven negligence if you slip or trip and fall on a parking lot.

2. Then, to prove that the property owner was negligent, you must show that the property owner knew or should reasonably have known that the parking lot was unreasonably unsafe or in other words they know about the dangerous surface but did nothing about it. For example, the pothole had been broken for almost a year, but the owner negligently failed to repair or fix it even the owner had received a dozen complaints about it.

A person can fall on a parking lot because of the following:

1. Potholes.
2. Broken or Loose paving stones.
3. Snow, Ice or sleet.
4. Spilled liquids, such as oil in a parking lot.
5. Debris, including trash or maintenance tools and left-behind equipment.
6. Irregular or shifting surfaces such as gravel, mulch or sand.
7. Inadequate lighting, which can make curbs and other surfaces challenging to navigate.