What Happens When You Slip on a Wet Floor? (2024)

Property owners have a responsibility to minimize the dangers that are posed to their guests and visitors. Not every potential hazard will be fixed, but it’s expected that owners and managers will do their best to label and cordon off dangerous areas. Slipping on a wet floor happens to the best of us. The question is were you properly warned of this potential hazard? A wet floor injury claim can help you get compensation if you’re injured.

Are Wet Floor Injury Claims Legitimate?

The most common cause of a wet floor is that someone just cleaned. Staff at most businesses are trained to display a wet floor sign when they’re mopping up. Other causes include it raining outside, or visitors tracking ice or snow in. Chunks of snow that fall off boots can quickly melt into large puddles.

Now chances are you’ve seen slip and fall cases posed as frivolous on TV. When sitcoms run out of ideas, they’ll often bring in a guest star to frivolously sue on a make-believe slip and fall case. TV is not reality. In fact, you may not remember a wet floor injury claim on TV ever being posed as serious. While it’s true that many false claims are filed, there are many real ones that are legitimate and should be taken seriously. A legitimate case will not be thrown out – a wet floor should be marked.

What to Do After Slipping on a Wet Floor

1. After slipping on a wet floor, the first thing you should do is check yourself for injuries. Common injuries may include broken arms, tailbones, injured backs, knee injuries, head injuries, and bleeding. Depending on how you fall, just about any injury is possible from the impact. This is why it’s important to check yourself before getting up.The last thing you want to do is get up without realizing you have an injury, and fall again as a result. Get medical attention for any help you need. If you need to stay there until medical attention arrives, then that is what you need to do.
2. Have someone inform security of your fall if they haven’t been informed already. Security at many locations can help corroborate details about the scene.
3. It’s important to know why the floor is wet, how long it’s been wet, and whether it’s marked. Perhaps the floor is wet because staff mopped and forgot to put a sign up. Perhaps rain or melted snow has made an area wet. Is it a leak that hasn’t been fixed? Did someone spill something in the aisle?
4. If you can, have someone take pictures or video of the area where you fell. Typically, the wetter the floor is and the more crowded the area, the greater the proof that the property owner is disregarding the safety of those on premises. Additionally, it’s important to document what you slipped on. If it’s grease or oil, this can be far more damaging to a property owner who didn’t contain the fluid.Many don’t think of doing this. They imagine falls happen even when it really is someone else’s fault. Only later do people reconsider the situation and wonder whether someone else caused their fall and injury.
5. Contact an attorney. The problem if you don’t is that it’s incredibly easy for a property owner to clean up a wet floor. The minute that floor is dried off and the problem that caused it is fixed, chances are good that much of your evidence has been erased.

This is why it’s important to contact a personal injury attorney quickly if your are injured after slipping on a wet floor. If there’s any potential your slipping on a wet floor was someone else’s fault, an attorney can quickly collect evidence including images, information from witnesses, and even surveillance video. The faster your attorney moves to collect this evidence, the more likely it is that they’ll be able to get it before people forget or it disappears.

Attorney Before Compensation

Above all, do not agree to any compensation before you contact a lawyer. Businesses that know they’re at fault will often get injured parties to sign for compensation extremely quickly. This can happen before anyone knows the extent of the injuries, and this compensation often includes a waiver that you won’t sue the property for your injuries.

If your injuries are more serious or longer-lasting than they first appear, what seems like fair compensation at first can end up not covering medical bills. It may even pale in comparison to what you really are owed under a wet floor injury claim.

Sometimes they’ll tell you the compensation is a time-limited offer. This is an attempt to pressure you into an agreement they know is bad for you. This is when you know with near certainty that they bear fault for your fall and injuries, and it’s the absolute worst time to accept their compensation.

Have a slip and fall lawyer look at any kind of compensation agreement to ensure that someone isn’t trying to take advantage of you and deny you what you actually deserve and need.

What if There’s No Wet Floor Sign?

If the floor is wet but there’s no wet floor sign, it’s not necessarily an open and shut case. That information can certainly contribute to proof of an owner’s or manager’s negligence and it makes a case much stronger. You need to have proof that no wet floor sign was present.

A popular defense of this is for a defendant to claim they were just getting out the wet floor sign, and simply hadn’t set it up yet. This can lead to a number of questions that distract from the simple fact that the floor was already wet without a sign present. You need to rely on an attorney who can argue and present evidence that helps get the case back on track regarding the facts.