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You've been invited to a pool party, maybe a graduation party. And while you're walking
around the homeowner's property what happens is you fall into something, you suffer a massive
fracture and now the question on your mind is is the homeowner responsible for your injury?
Would you like to learn what this is about? Come join me as I share with you this really
important information. Hi. I'm Gerry Oginski. I'm a New York medical malpractice and personal
injury trial attorney practicing law here in the state of New York. Now, when somebody
gets injured on somebody else's property one of the key questions that we need to know
is what was it that caused you to fall. Was there a defect there? Was there a hole that
was closed over that nobody knew about? Was there some defect in the property or maybe
a tripping hazard? What was it that actually caused you to fall? Once you know that answer,
now we can look back and ask the question: did the homeowner now about this dangerous
condition? Should the homeowner gone ahead and taken steps to fix this dangerous condition
before somebody got hurt? And for somebody to understand that we have to identify (1)
that the homeowner actually knew there was a dangerous condition -- that's called "actual
notice." Did somebody actually tell them at some point, before you got hurt, hey listen
there's a big problem on your property. If you don't fix it somebody's going to get hurt
at some point. So this way they actually knew about a dangerous condition. Or maybe even
better, somebody actually wrote a letter to the homeowner and said hey listen, you better
fix this problem because it's dangerous and somebody's going to get hurt. Now what if
nobody actually gave the homeowner actual notice and told them listen you've got a real
bad problem that needs to be fixed? Well there's something called "constructive notice" and
that means the homeowner should have known that this condition existed for a significant
period of time and should have taken reasonable steps to fix it in a reasonable amount of
time. Many times the defense will turn around and say "Hey, we actually never knew there
was a defect there" or "We didn't have any clue that there was a problem; nobody told
us about it and in the ordinary course or doing our daily things we never saw this and
were never alerted to this. So how can we be held responsible to try and fix something
if we didn't know anything about it?" Let me give you this scenario. Let's say there's
an open hole on somebody's front lawn. And what they do, for temporary measure, they
put a piece of wood or plywood over it right? And they don't do anything about it. They
don't get a contractor or gardener or landscaper in to fill in the hole and take care of it.
And they don't block it off with certain orange fencing to alert people that there's something
dangerous here. So now let's say it's evening time. And somebody happens to be walking by
on the property accidentally or on purpose and now they don't realize that the wood covering
that hole has now deteriorated or maybe now the land surrounding that hole has deteriorated
because it's rained and now it's saturated. And now if somebody accidentally steps on
that wood platform -- boom! Goes right down, suffers a significant injury. Is the homeowner
going to be held responsible as a result of what occurred? Well we can certainly make
the argument that the homeowner knew constructively that having an open hole with simply a piece
of plywood for a period of time can deteriorate and it's a hazard. And if you don't go ahead
and set up barriers to prevent people from this particular area, it is quite possible
that people walking by intentionally or accidentally may fall in and suffer injury. And in that
instance we may be successful if we're able to show and convince not only the court but
the jury that this was something that the homeowner should have known about, should
have taken reasonable steps to fix and should have done so in a timely fashion. So why do
I share this great information with you? I share it with you just to give you an insight
and an understanding into what goes on in a case involving a trip and fall on somebody's
property. You know, I realize you probably have questions of your own but your own injury
that you suffered because of your fall. Well if your matter happened here in New York and
you do have legal questions, what I encourage you to do is pick up the phone and call me.
I can answer your legal questions. I do this every single day and I welcome your call.
You can reach me at 516-487-8207 or by email at Gerry@Oginski-law.com. Well that's it for
today's quick video. I'm Gerry Oginski, coming to you from New York. Have a wonderful day!