If you have been injured in a hotel, you may be entitled to compensation through premises liability. Pursuing your claim against the hotel can hold it accountable for not keeping its patrons safe. In California, even if you were partially to blame for your injuries, you can still recover financial compensation to cover for your losses.
What are some common hotel accidents?
Lots of different kinds of accidents can happen in hotels or motels. Many of them are slip and fall accidents. However, not all are. Some common hotel accidents include:
- tripping and falling on a hidden obstruction on the floor, like a folded carpet or floor mat,
- slipping on a puddle or substance in the hotel’s walkways,
- getting bitten by bed bugs in the hotel room,
- falling down a step that was not apparent and was poorly marked,
- breaking through a defectively installed handrail that could not hold your weight,
- suffering burns in the shower by water that was set at too high of a temperature,
- getting hurt or drowning in the hotel’s swimming pool, and
- being the victim of a crime in the hotel or on the hotel’s property, including its parking lot or garage.
Hotels have a legal duty of care to keep their patrons and guests safe. This includes the duty to keep its premises in a reasonably safe condition. If hotel management fails to uphold this duty, the hotel can be liable for the losses caused by their failure. This is the case, even if hotel staff did not purposefully fail to uphold the duty of care. The hotel can be held liable even if its staff was merely negligent.
A hotel accident lawyer can help you recover compensation after one of these types of accidents. Establishing an attorney-client relationship with an accident attorney and getting their legal advice is essential. It can help you recover compensation for your medical treatment and other losses.
What if the hotel’s negligence caused a guest injuries?
The hotel’s duty of care is not confined to its paying patrons. It also has a duty of care to keep the guests of those patrons safe, as well. The hotel can be held liable for injuries its negligence causes, even if the victim was not paying to stay at the hotel.
For example: Diana flies from Florida to see her friend Katy. Diana stays at a hotel in Los Angeles before they travel to Las Vegas, Nevada. Katy visits Diana at the hotel and they go swimming in the hotel’s pool. There are no warning signs that the pool is only 6 feet deep and that diving is dangerous. Katy dives into the pool and suffers serious injuries, including a brain injury. The hotel could still be held liable for the pool accident, even though Katy was not staying at the hotel. It did not warn hotel guests of the dangerous condition.
What if I was partially to blame for my hotel injury?
In California, you can recover compensation after a hotel accident even if you were partially to blame for it. The amount that you recover, however, will be reduced.
Many accidents, including those that happen in a hotel, involve shared fault. Each state has its own rules for resolving shared fault accidents.
California has adopted pure comparative negligence as its method for resolving shared fault accidents.1 Under this rule, the jury at a personal injury trial will assign each party a percentage of responsibility for the accident. If you win your case, your compensation is then reduced by your percentage of fault.
For example: Paul is walking down the hallway when he trips on the edge of a laundry cart that a hotel employee had left sticking out of a doorway. He breaks his arm while trying to brace for the fall. At trial, the jury finds that Paul has suffered $50,000 in legal damages. However, it also finds that Paul was 10 percent at fault. He could have seen the cart in the way, but did not because he was on his cell phone. Paul’s compensation will be reduced by 10 percent, down to $45,000.
How can a personal injury lawyer help?
A personal injury lawyer from a reputable law firm can help victims of hotel accidents by increasing the settlement offers they get. If no fair settlement offer is made by the hotel’s insurance company, your lawyer can file a personal injury claim on your behalf.
Any settlement for a personal injury case should not just cover your medical bills. It should also cover your professional losses, like lost income, as well as your pain and suffering. The settlement should also cover any ongoing medical attention that you need from an appropriate medical professional, like a physical therapist.
If the injuries from the hotel accident prove to be fatal, a personal injury attorney can help the victim’s family members file a wrongful death claim against the hotel.