Written and reviewed by Josh Kohanim, Esq., California Bar No. 328609 · Reviewed
Quick questions
What decides your slip and fall case
We represent people who fell on someone else's property in Los Angeles County: a store aisle, an apartment stairwell, a garage ramp, or a sidewalk. The claim turns on who is responsible, how the owner's knowledge is proved, the deadlines, what moves value, and when there is no case at all. Falls from a height at a job site run through construction accident rules.
A slip and fall is not its own body of law. It is one kind of premises liability claim: the rule that whoever owns, leases, occupies, or controls property must use reasonable care to keep it reasonably safe. That duty comes from California Civil Code section 1714(a), which makes everyone responsible for injury caused by a want of ordinary care in the management of their property. Negligence is the failure to use the care a reasonable person would use, and the duty follows control rather than the deed. Our Los Angeles premises liability page covers the wider category.
The four things you have to prove
A jury deciding your fall is read CACI No. 1000 from the Judicial Council of California Civil Jury Instructions, 2025 edition. You carry all four elements:
- The defendant owned, leased, occupied, or controlled the property.
- The defendant was negligent in the use or maintenance of the property.
- You were harmed.
- That negligence was a substantial factor in causing your harm.
Element two is where the case is decided. CACI No. 1003 breaks it into three findings: a condition created an unreasonable risk of harm, the defendant knew or should have known about it, and the defendant failed to repair it, guard it, or warn adequately. A wet floor proves nothing. A wet floor an employee walked past twice is a case.
People search for a trip and fall lawyer after catching a raised sidewalk slab and for a slip and fall lawyer after going down on liquid. California law does not separate them, and the label only changes the evidence you look for.
Who is responsible for your fall
Start with control, not the sign on the building. CACI No. 1002 tells the jury that a person controls property they do not own when they use it as if it were their own, and must keep every area they control reasonably safe. A Los Angeles fall often has two or three entities holding part of it.
Stores and supermarkets
The store operator controls the sales floor and is expected to inspect it on a schedule. Whether that schedule existed, and whether anyone followed it in the minutes before you fell, is usually the whole dispute. Sweep logs, produce cases, rainy-day entry mats, and the documents to demand are on our page about store and supermarket falls.
Landlords and apartment buildings
CACI No. 1006 gives a landlord a duty to make reasonable periodic inspections whenever the landlord has the legal right of possession, and to take reasonable precautions against any unsafe condition in an area under the landlord's control once the landlord knows or should have known about it. Stairs, walkways, laundry rooms, and garages are almost always under that control. The hazard inside your own unit is a different rule, covered on our page on apartment, stairway, and common area falls.
Restaurants, bars, hotels, and parking structures
The operator owes the same duty as any occupier, and the building often belongs to someone else. The recurring hazards are the path from the kitchen, the service station, the unmarked step between floor levels, and the pool deck. A garage adds one more party: the maintenance contractor's sweep schedule is often better evidence than anything the owner keeps, because the contractor bills for the work.
Sidewalks and government property
A sidewalk can produce two defendants. Streets and Highways Code section 5610 says owners of lots fronting a public street shall maintain any sidewalk in a condition that will not endanger persons or property. A fall at a Metro station or a county building runs instead under Government Code section 835, which requires a dangerous condition, causation, foreseeability, and either an employee who created it or notice in time to act. Both paths are on our page about sidewalk and city property falls.
| Where you fell | Who controls it | The duty that applies | Usual defendant |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supermarket or store | The store operator | Inspection and repair, CACI 1001 | The chain and its insurer |
| Apartment common area | The landlord | Periodic inspection, CACI 1006 | Owner and property manager |
| Restaurant, bar, hotel | The business, sometimes a separate owner | The occupier's duty, CACI 1000 | Operator, plus the landlord |
| Parking lot or garage | Owner, operator, or contractor | Duty follows control, CACI 1002 | Whoever controlled it |
| Public sidewalk | The city, often the fronting owner too | Streets and Highways Code 5610 | The city or the abutting owner |
| Metro, county, or school | The public entity | Dangerous condition, Gov. Code 835 | The entity, after a claim |
How you prove the owner knew
This is the element insurers contest. California does not make a store an insurer of your safety. It makes the store responsible for what reasonable care would have caught. The question is never only whether the floor was wet.
Actual notice means someone responsible for the property knew the hazard was there. Constructive notice means it existed long enough, and was obvious enough, that reasonable care would have found it. A third route skips notice entirely: CACI No. 1012 tells the jury that if the defendant or an employee acting within the scope of employment created the condition, the defendant knew about it. The employee who overfilled the mop bucket cannot say nobody told him.
The strongest rule here comes from the California Supreme Court. In Ortega v. Kmart Corp. (2001) 26 Cal.4th 1200, a customer slipped on a puddle of milk beside a refrigerator and could not prove how long it had been there. The Court held that evidence of a failure to inspect within a reasonable period of time before the accident supports an inference that the condition existed long enough to be discovered. That holding is now an optional bracketed paragraph in CACI No. 1011, which means a missing inspection record can prove the notice the store says you cannot prove.
| Type of notice | What it means | What proves it |
|---|---|---|
| Actual | Someone working there knew about the hazard | Incident reports, complaint logs, employee statements, texts |
| Imputed, CACI 1012 | An employee created it, so knowledge is charged to the owner | Video, work assignments, the employee's account |
| Constructive | There long enough that reasonable care would have found it | Sweep logs, inspection sheets, video timestamps, weather records |
| No inspection, CACI 1011 | Nobody checked within a reasonable time before the fall | The gap in the log, or no log at all |
Every item in that right-hand column, what proves it, is a document somebody else holds, and most sit on a deletion schedule. That is why speed matters more here than in a car case. Our guide to how to prove a property owner knew about the hazard covers each category of proof and what to send, in writing, before it is gone.
How long you have to file
A statute of limitations is the deadline to file a lawsuit, and missing it ends the claim regardless of how strong the facts are. On private property it is two years from the fall, under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1, which allows two years for an action for injury to an individual caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another.
The answer starts a second deadline. Government Code section 945.6 gives you six months to sue after written notice of rejection is delivered or mailed. If no written notice comes in the form the statute requires, you have two years from accrual instead. The rejection letter is the most important piece of mail in a government case, because it converts a two year window into a six month one.
| Who you are claiming against | First deadline | Deadline to sue | Statute |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private owner, store, landlord | None | 2 years from the fall | CCP 335.1 |
| City, county, Metro, school district | 6 months to present a claim | 6 months after a rejection | Gov. Code 911.2, 945.6 |
| A public entity that sends no rejection | 6 months to present it | 2 years from the fall | Gov. Code 945.6(a)(2) |
| Late against a public entity | Application for leave, within 1 year | Depends on the ruling | Gov. Code 911.4 |
A child's own claim is tolled, meaning paused, during minority under Code of Civil Procedure section 352(a), which excludes the time of the disability from the limitations period, so the two years usually runs from the eighteenth birthday. It does not rescue the six month government claim.
What a slip and fall is worth
There is no reliable average. Value is built from two categories the statute defines. Civil Code section 1431.2(b) defines economic damages as objectively verifiable monetary losses including medical expenses and loss of earnings, and noneconomic damages as subjective, non-monetary losses including pain, suffering, inconvenience, mental suffering, and emotional distress.
Three terms run through every settlement discussion. A demand is the written package we send the insurer: the records, the bills, and the number. Policy limits are the maximum a policy will pay, and on a small building they can be lower than the surgery. A medical lien is a provider's right to be paid out of the settlement, which is why the gross number is never the net.
What moves value is narrower than people expect: whether surgery happened, whether the limitation is permanent, whether wage loss is documented, how strong the notice evidence is, and how much coverage exists. A hip fracture with an operative report and a sweep log full of gaps is a serious case. The same fracture with no video is an argument.
| Factor | Raises value | Lowers value |
|---|---|---|
| Medical course | Surgery, hardware, a permanent restriction | A few visits, no imaging |
| Timing of treatment | Seen within days, treated consistently | Weeks of delay, then a gap |
| Notice evidence | Video, a sweep log with holes, prior complaints | Nothing requested before it was gone |
| Wage loss | Employer letter, tax returns, a job you cannot do | Cash work, nothing documented |
| Coverage | A national chain or a commercial policy | A small owner at low limits |
One of our own cases shows the mechanism. A 60-year-old woman slipped on a wet floor near the produce section of a grocery store, with no warning sign out. She broke her hip and had a hip replacement. The store denied liability. Security footage established that employees knew about the spill and had not cleaned it up in time, and the case settled for $1,000,000. More outcomes are on the case results page.
Slip and fall, hip replacement
The store denied liability. Security footage showed staff knew about the spill.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Every case depends on its own facts, injuries, and insurance coverage. Amounts shown are gross recoveries before attorney's fees, costs, and medical liens.
If you were partly at fault
Comparative fault divides responsibility by percentage instead of treating it as all or nothing. CACI No. 405 tells the jury that if the defendant proves your negligence was a substantial factor in causing your own harm, your damages are reduced by your percentage of responsibility, not erased. California has no cutoff at 50 percent.
If a jury values your case at $200,000 and finds you 25 percent responsible for looking at your phone, the judgment is $150,000. The insurer's first letter will treat that 25 percent as 100. On the defense side, Civil Code section 1431.2(a) makes each defendant's liability for noneconomic damages several only, so a store and its maintenance contractor each pay their own percentage.
The other argument you will hear is that the hazard was open and obvious. CACI No. 1004 states the rule: if a condition is so obvious that a person could reasonably be expected to observe it, the owner need not warn, but must still use reasonable care to protect against the risk if it is foreseeable that someone who has to encounter it may be hurt. A puddle across the only entrance to a pharmacy is obvious and still actionable, because you have to walk through it.
What to do in the first days
- 1Report the fall on the property, that day
Ask a manager to write an incident report, and get the report number and the manager's name before you leave. A report created that day is the hardest document for the defense to explain away.
- 2Photograph the condition before it is cleaned
The hazard, the floor around it, the lighting above it, the nearest sign, and your shoes. Within an hour the spill is mopped and the cone is out, and the scene no longer exists.
- 3Put the video request in writing
A call to a manager preserves nothing. A written request naming the date, the time window, the location, and the camera views does. Video is the fastest proof of how long a condition sat there.
- 4Get examined within days, not weeks
Hip, wrist, shoulder, and head injuries often present as soreness and then declare themselves. The gap between the fall and the first visit is the first thing an insurance adjuster measures.
- 5Give no recorded statement
An adjuster will call within days to record a statement about where you were looking and how you feel today. You owe the other side no such statement. Our post on handling insurance companies after a personal injury explains what those questions are for.
What happens after you call us
The sequence is the same in every one of these files, and the timing depends on how long treatment takes. We do not send a demand while you are still treating. A number sent before the medical picture is finished cannot be raised.
- 1Investigation and preservation, the first weeks
We identify every entity that controlled the area, send preservation letters for video and inspection records, and request the incident report. This window decides what evidence exists.
- 2Treatment, until your doctors say you are done
You treat. We keep the providers, records, and liens organized and handle the adjuster. That takes months rather than weeks if there is surgery.
- 3The demand
Records, bills, wage documentation, notice evidence, and the number, in one package. The first response is a negotiating position, not an evaluation, and often lands below the medical bills.
- 4Negotiation, or a lawsuit
Most resolve without a filing. When the insurer will not move, we file. Personal injury cases in the Central District of Los Angeles Superior Court have gone to Independent Calendar departments at Stanley Mosk since January 8, 2024, under its December 2023 notice ending the Personal Injury Hub.
- 5Discovery, then resolution
Discovery is the formal exchange of evidence before trial: depositions (sworn interviews) of the manager and the crew on that shift, inspection records under subpoena, and often a floor safety expert witness. You approve every number.
When you may not have a case
Some falls are nobody's fault, and we would rather say so early. These are the five reasons we decline a fall case.
- No notice and no inspection failure. Someone dropped a jar thirty seconds before you walked past, an employee was on the way, and no inspection interval was missed.
- A trivial defect. Courts do not require perfect walkways. On public property, Government Code section 830.2 says a condition is not dangerous if the court decides as a matter of law that the risk was minor or trivial.
- A recreational use. Civil Code section 846 gives a landowner immunity for injuries to people entering for a recreational purpose, with three exceptions: a willful or malicious failure to guard or warn, entry for a fee, and an express invitation.
- An injury at work. Labor Code section 3602(a) makes workers' compensation the exclusive remedy against your employer. Under section 3706, an employer who failed to secure the payment of compensation can be sued as if that system did not apply. A fall on a third party's property while working is often a claim against that party.
- The deadline has run. Two years on private property, six months against a public entity. Call anyway if you are close, because the accrual date, the day the clock starts, is not always the date you assume.
The injuries a hard fall causes
Falls concentrate injuries in the hip, wrist, shoulder, spine, and head, and do the most damage to the people least able to absorb it. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that more than 14 million older adults, about 1 in 4, report falling each year, producing an estimated 9 million fall injuries, and that their age-adjusted fall death rate rose from 64.7 per 100,000 in 2018 to 78.4 in 2024.
When a fall produces a head strike, a cord injury, or a permanent limitation, the claim changes character. Those run through our Los Angeles brain injury, spinal cord injury, and catastrophic injury practices. When a fall kills someone, usually an older parent after a hip fracture, the claim belongs to the family under our wrongful death practice.
Talk to a slip and fall lawyer
You have a case if the owner knew about the hazard, created it, or would have found it with the inspections a careful operator makes, and if you can still prove it. That proof sits on a hard drive belonging to the other side, and not for long.
We get you treated and get the evidence preserved, in that order. We send the preservation letters, request the incident report and the inspection records, take the adjuster's calls, and track the deadline. Our attorneys handle these cases from the first call through trial; their background is on the attorney page, and more answers are in our general FAQ. If you fell in Orange County, start with our Santa Ana slip and fall page. No fee unless we recover.