Restaurant Trip and Falls

When you go out to eat, you probably expect to relax and enjoy the company of family or friends. Restaurants are establishments that are expected to take care to keep their premises safe for patrons. However, in some cases, restaurants fail to keep up the property as well as they should. Particularly at night or in dimly lit areas, trip and falls may occur on the restaurant premises or just outside in the parking lot. If you are hurt at a restaurant in East Tennessee, you should contact the Hartsoe Law Firm and speak with Knoxville trip and fall lawyer Mark Hartsoe. Enlisting a knowledgeable premises liability attorney like Mark Hartsoe is a critical step to take when you have been hurt.

As business invitees, restaurant patrons are owed the highest duty of care in Tennessee. Business invitees are visitors who are on a piece of property for the economic advantage of both the business and the visitor. A restaurant owner is expected to inspect the premises regularly for hazardous conditions and to make repairs or provide warnings to business invitees. This may include putting up orange hazard cones, calling a contractor to fix a broken step, or putting up a sign where an unexpected step or a particularly big drop is located within the restaurant.

You will need to establish actual or constructive notice to the restaurant of any dangerous condition that you claim caused your accident. Actual notice exists when a restaurant actually knows of a dangerous condition. Constructive notice exists when a restaurant should have known about the dangerous condition in the exercise of reasonable care.

Generally, constructive notice may be established by showing that the condition existed for some time before your fall. For example, if a dangerous condition in a dimly lit restaurant parking lot caused you to trip and get hurt, your attorney could interview restaurant employees and perhaps review surveillance footage to see how long the dangerous condition was there. If it was there for several days or weeks, you might have a strong case that the restaurant had time to notice the problem and hire a contractor to make repairs.

If you can establish the liability of a restaurant, you probably can recover compensatory damages. These typically include medical costs, lost income, pain and suffering, and any diminished enjoyment of life.

Sometimes a restaurant will raise the defense that a particular hazard was open and obvious. All visitors are expected to use reasonable care for their own safety. Your trip and fall attorney can help you fight back against any accusations that you may have been responsible for the accident.

Knowledgeable Knoxville trip and fall attorney Mark Hartsoe can vigorously represent you if you have been hurt on the property of a restaurant. Call the Hartsoe Law Firm at 865-804-1011 or contact us via our online form to schedule a free consultation with an injury attorney. We represent victims across East Tennessee, including in Knox, Blount, Monroe, Loudon, Jefferson, Grainger, Cocke, Campbell, Hamblen, Greene, Anderson, Cumberland, and Fentress Counties.