Los Angeles Premises Liability Attorney

40+ Years of Experience Fighting for You

In the state of California, all property owners are required to maintain a reasonably safe environment for their visitors—including residential and commercial property owners alike. If you were injured on someone else’s property, you may have the right to seek compensation. With the help of a Los Angeles premises liability lawyer from Biren Law Group, you can fight to hold the negligent party accountable through a premises liability claim.

Millions Recovered in CA Premises Liability Cases

Our attorneys at Biren Law Group have successfully handled numerous premises liability cases throughout the Los Angeles area, including:

• Williams v. Doe Water Park: we represented the family of a young girl who drowned at a wave pool in a water park. They recovered $1.5 million in damages.
• Doe v. Roe Manufacturing Co: we represented a man who suffered brain damage as a result of an argon gas leak. The case was settled for $2 million.
• Harwood v. Custom Foods: we represented a man who suffered a brain injury while opening his truck doors on a public street. He recovered $2 million.
• Curry v. Hayward McGuire: we represented a woman who suffered serious burns while trapped in her apartment. She recovered $1 million in damages.

Contact our Los Angeles premises liability attorneys at Biren Law Group today by calling (310) 896-4345 or contacting us online for a free consultation.

Types of Premises Liability Claims in California

Premises liability is a legal concept that applies to a wide range of circumstances. From dog bites to slip and fall accidents, there are countless ways that you could be injured when a negligent or careless property owner fails to uphold their duty of care.

Some of the most common types of premises liability claims include: 

• Slip and fall accidents
• Dog bites / animal attacks
• Inadequate security
• Amusement park accidents
• Toxic fumes or chemicals
• Swimming pool accidents
• Water leaks or flooding
• Dangerous stairways
• Sidewalk defects

If you were injured under any of these circumstances, you may have grounds to file a premises liability claim.

Your Rights As A Property Visitor in California

Not everyone who visits a property is entitled to the same level of care from the owner or manager and what category you fit into you can greatly impact your premises liability case.

The three types of visitors under California law are:

• Invitees - These visitors have the expressed or implied permission of the owner to be on the premises. This can include friends, family, and neighbors for residential properties, and customers or patrons on commercial properties. Invitees are owed the highest level of care from a property owner.
• Licensees - These are visitors who have entered the property for their own purpose, but still have the implied or actual consent of the owner. A licensee can be someone delivering a package or a looking to sell a product or service. These visitors are still owed a basic duty of care from the owner, especially if the hazard is not something they would be aware of.
• Trespassers - These types visitors have no legal right to be on the property and may even be expressly forbidden from entering by signs. However, a property owner cannot intentionally create a hazard that may injure a trespasser, or attempt to lure a trespasser onto their property where they are injured.

Proving Your Premises Liability Case

As a plaintiff, you'll need to prove how a property owner was negligent, that they knew or should have known about a dangerous condition on their land (had actual or constructive notice), and that they failed to take reasonable steps in fixing, repairing, protecting against, or warning about the hazard. 

Our premises liability lawyers in Los Angeles have the experience and insight to help victims tackle these complicated tasks.

Discuss your case with one of our lawyers at Biren Law Group today to learn more about your legal options and rights. Our attorneys are available to discuss your accident, how we handle property accident investigations, and what we do to prove the key elements of premises liability.

Our Approach to Premises Liability Investigations

Premises liability allows victims injured on others’ property to hold owners or managers at fault when they fail to act reasonably in identifying, fixing, and/or warning about dangerous conditions.

Determining if a property owner can be held liable for injuries on its land, however, depends on the individual facts of a case; in other words, whether a “duty of care” existed and to what degree, will always rest on the unique set of circumstances surrounding the accident.

Because premises cases are hinged on applying general legal theories or court decisions to very fact-specific situations, a one-size-fits-all approach can cause even experienced attorneys to overlook the many different possibilities and places where liability may exist.

At Biren Law Group, we take calculated steps to avoid this type of tunnel vision by tailoring our strategies for determining fault and liability, and leveraging our experience, reputation, and resources to perform thorough investigations. 

That includes an approach consisting of:

• Informal discovery and client interviews
• Evidence preservation
• Site inspections
• Witnesses
• Formal discovery

Premises cases can be made in their earliest phases, which is why effective investigatory strategies are so crucial. Investigations built on tactfulness, civility, and the cultivation of good faith among all involved parties can also pay dividends when it comes to cooperation, and when negotiating settlements or taking a case to trial.

As a father-son legal team that prioritizes close working relationships with clients, colleagues, and leading experts, Biren Law Group can efficiently navigate a range of premises accident investigations across the Los Angeles area and Southern California.

Informal Discovery: Client Interviews

Discovery is the formal legal process of obtaining and sharing evidence, but such work can be done, to some degree, long before discovery formally begins. One of the most important steps of building a premises case, for example, is using the client as a resource for direct information about essential facts and issues to assess:

• How the accident occurred and in what context (i.e. lighting conditions, weather conditions, and time of day);
• Whether there were witnesses who saw what happened or know how a dangerous condition occurred;
• If there is a known history of prior similar incidents;
• Whether the client or others involved have potentially valuable evidence related to the incident at hand (i.e. photos, video footage of the scene, documentation, communications, etc.).

In addition to getting critical data points from clients, early explorations and discussion can aid in anticipating potential defenses, such as arguments raising the issue of a client’s own negligence causing or contributing to the accident. 

Personalized questions during client interviews can help prepare for common defenses and creative curveballs from the defense. For example:

• What type of clothing / work gear / shoes was the client wearing? Did they pose trip or fall risks? Can they be inspected and preserved as evidence?
• Was the client distracted, walking while texting, running to catch a bus, or engaging in any type of activity that may have contributed to the accident?
• Why was the client at the location, and did they have the right to be in said location?
• Should the client have been able to easily identify a dangerous condition?

Evidence Preservation: Demand to Preserve Evidence

Written demands to preserve evidence are another critical step in the early stages of a premises case, as they can serve as a first “appearance” in front of the property owner, put the defense on notice, and alert them that victims have an intent to pursue damages.

Demands to preserve help accomplish two important objectives:

• Evaluating evidence early in a case: Victims and attorneys may request CCTV or surveillance footage, HOA meeting minutes, job safety analyses, incident reports, and other relevant information before any lawsuit is filed, and provide time to evaluate evidence and strategize a plan of attack.
• Preserving important evidence: By putting a defendant on notice, demands also provide leverage in the form potential sanctions for defendants who lose, alter, or destroy evidence in their custody (Cedars-Sinai Medical Center v. Superior Court (1998) 18 Cal.4th 1).

Site Inspections

Attorneys may visit and walk a premises in person, bringing clients or witnesses who are familiar with the scene, when possible, to point out where the incident occurred, the location of any dangerous conditions which caused or contributed to the incident (e.g., puddles in a slip and fall case), and other details relevant to a case.

 Early inspections of an accident site can elicit information victims may have not remembered, seen, or viewed as consequential to their claims at the time.

In some cases, attorneys may also bring experts to site inspects. These experts may assist in accident reconstruction or provide opinions on hazards or liability issues specific to the site, industry, regulations or codes, or the types of issues involved in a case.

Early site inspections offer opportunities to assess critical components of a case, such as:

• Whether a dangerous condition is as dangerous as initially presumed, or to what degree injuries were foreseeable;
• Theories of liability and issues that may apply to the specific circumstances, such as trivial defects, open and obvious defects, and actual or constructive notice; 
• The potential strength of a case, and the time and resources it may require.

Depending on where an incident took place, visiting an accident scene may require additional steps. In California, state law allows for the following:

• Public property: If a premises is open to the public, defendants do not have to be notified of an inspection (Pullin v. Superior Court (2000) 81 Cal.App.4th 1161).
• Private property: If a premises is private property, defendants must be put on notice of the plaintiffs’ intent to conduct a site inspection, and request access via a written Notice of Site Inspection that includes the proposed time, date, and location.

Witnesses

During the informal stages of investigation, there should be a focus on identifying and interviewing any potential witnesses. Client interviews can help in obtaining the information of known witnesses, as can site inspections, or visits by investigators who may assist in identifying potential witnesses. If witnesses do exist, they should be interviewed as soon as possible, as memories can and do fade with time.

Formal Discovery

Formal discovery is a time when Inspection and Access demands are made. As the cornerstone of premises liability litigation, requests for production should be thorough and specific to issues identified in the case. Under the CA Civil Discovery Act, defendants are obligated to provide evidence in their possession upon request, including:

• Photos, diagrams, and blueprints of the site and incident area;
• Video footage of the scene at and around the time of the incident;
• Safety manuals, company policies, Board / HOA meeting minutes or newsletters, and other internal documents maintained by property owners;
• Contracts held by property owners with any third parties who manage, clean, or perform work or services on the premises;
• Maintenance / inspection logs or incident reports in the property owner’s possession;
• Reports of any similar incidents or complaints made before and after the incident.

In addition to requesting evidence, formal discovery may also entail deposition (formal interviews under oath) of key witnesses, including:

• Key personnel with knowledge of the condition of the premises, including any parties identified in interrogatories (e.g., security, HOA members, Board members, property management, maintenance crew, and other contractors);
• Key witnesses identified by the defendant’s most knowledgeable person, investigators, or the client;
• Workers on duty at the time of the accident, those who made incident reports, and any person with the client at the time.

Because defendants looking mitigate liability may argue plaintiffs bore some portion of fault in causing their own injuries, they may attempt to introduce comparative negligence evidence. Just as it is important to request, preserve, and secure the admission of evidence which favors victims, it is as equally important to fight the introduction of such evidence from the defense – particularly if it were to mislead or confuse the jury (CA Evidence Code § 352) on matters of duty, rather than the issue of the standard of care they are tasked with evaluating.

Call Now for a Free, No-Risk Consultation

Biren Law Group has represented thousands of clients over the last 40 years, recovering more than half a billion of dollars in compensation. Find out how we can assist you with your personal injury claim by scheduling a free, no-risk consultation with one of our premises liability attorneys in Los Angeles, CA. We will stop at nothing to secure justice.

Contact Biren Law Group to schedule a no-risk consultation: (310) 896-4345.