If you were hurt on someone else's property in California — a store, a parking lot, an apartment complex, a sidewalk, a public building — and the owner is saying it was your fault for not looking, this page is for you. Pletcher Law, APC, in Westlake Village, represents injured people throughout Ventura County, Los Angeles County, and the rest of California, in the trial court and on appeal.
Does this sound like your situation?
- You slipped on a spill or a wet floor in a store, and no one had put up a sign.
- A stair, a handrail, or a step gave way, or was broken before you got to it.
- You tripped on a lifted sidewalk slab, a pothole, or a parking-lot curb that was hard to see.
- You were hurt in a common area at your apartment — a stairwell, a walkway, a laundry room — after the landlord had been told.
- You fell at a city park, a county building, a public school, a transit stop, or a state facility.
- The property's insurance company called within days, asked for a recorded statement, and mentioned a number.
- The store told you there's no video, or that they'll “look into it,” and you've heard nothing since.
If one of these is you, the next step is a free 15-minute call. I'll tell you whether you have a case, who is responsible, and — most urgently — what your deadline is.
Book a free 15-minute case review or call/text (805) 630-3245
Free. Confidential. No attorney's fee unless we win.
The rule in California
Everyone who owns, leases, occupies, or controls property is responsible for injuries caused by their failure to use ordinary care in managing it (Civ. Code § 1714). That duty runs to anyone lawfully on the property — customers, tenants, guests, delivery drivers — and California stopped using the old trespasser-licensee-invitee labels as the test decades ago (Rowland v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108). The question is not what label applied to you. It is whether a reasonable owner would have found the hazard and fixed it, warned about it, or kept you away from it.
A property owner is not an insurer of your safety, and not every fall is a case. The owner has to have known about the condition, or it has to have been there long enough that a reasonable inspection would have found it. That second kind of knowledge — constructive notice — is where most slip-and-fall cases are won or lost.
Proving they should have known
The owner will say no one knew the floor was wet. California law answers that with a question: when did anyone last check? Under Ortega v. Kmart Corp. (2001) 26 Cal.4th 1200, a store that cannot show it inspected the area within a reasonable time lets a jury infer the hazard was there long enough to be found. There's no fixed number of minutes; the question is whether a reasonable inspection would have found it in time. A spill that sat for twenty minutes in a grocery aisle with no sweep log is a case. A spill that happened thirty seconds before you rounded the corner usually is not.
That is why the evidence that matters is the evidence the owner controls: the inspection or sweep log, the maintenance records, the incident report, the surveillance video, and prior complaints about the same spot. Most of it is overwritten or “unavailable” within weeks unless someone demands it in writing. I send that letter the day you hire me.
Sidewalks, stairs, and the “it was obvious” defense
Trip hazards. A raised sidewalk slab or an uneven step is a case when the difference is big enough to matter. Courts throw out claims over height differences of roughly an inch or less as “trivial defects,” which is why a photograph with a tape measure in it is worth more than any description. Measure it before someone grinds it down.
“Open and obvious.” The owner's favorite argument is that you should have seen it. In California that is not a complete defense. If it was foreseeable that people would walk through the hazard anyway — because it was the only path, or because they'd be looking at shelves instead of the floor — the owner still had a duty to fix it or warn. What the argument can do is reduce your recovery by your share of fault under California's pure comparative negligence rule (Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804); it does not erase the case.
Apartments and common areas. A landlord is responsible for the common areas it controls and for hazards it knew about or should have found when it inspected. The broken stair you reported in March that dropped you in June is a case built on your own emails. Save them.
Negligent security. An assault in an unlit parking structure with a history of break-ins can be a premises case against the owner, not only a claim against the attacker. These turn on what the owner knew about prior incidents and did nothing about.
If the property is public
A fall at a city park, a county building, a public school, a transit stop, or a state facility is a claim against a public entity, and three things change at once.
Six months. California requires a written government claim within six months of the injury before any lawsuit can be filed (Gov. Code §§ 911.2, 945.4). Miss it and the claim is usually gone. The two-year deadline below does not save you.
A different standard. You have to prove a dangerous condition of public property (Gov. Code § 835) — a condition that created a substantial risk of injury when the property was used with due care, that the entity knew about or created, and that it had time to fix. That is more than ordinary negligence, and the entity has immunities a private owner does not.
Who owns it. A sidewalk can belong to the city, the county, or the adjacent property owner, and the answer decides your deadline. If there is any chance the property was public, call before you do anything else.
Deadlines
- Private property: two years from the injury to file suit (Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1).
- Public property: a written government claim within six months, then the lawsuit on the schedule the claim sets.
- Video and records: no statute — just the store's overwrite cycle, which is often thirty days. The preservation letter is the real first deadline.
What to do first
- Photograph everything, today — the hazard, from several angles and distances, with something in frame for scale; the lighting; the absence of a warning sign; your shoes and clothing. Owners fix hazards within a day of a fall. The photo is the only version of the scene that survives.
- Report it in writing and get a copy. If the store filled out an incident report, ask for it. If they won't give it to you, email the manager that night describing what happened and that you asked.
- Get the names of every employee who responded and every customer who saw it.
- Keep the shoes. Don't clean them, don't wear them. “Her shoes were worn out” is the defense's second-favorite argument.
- See a doctor now, not next week. The gap between the fall and the first visit is what the insurer will use to say you weren't hurt.
- Don't give a recorded statement to the property's insurer, and don't sign anything they send — a medical authorization, a release, a “quick resolution.” Ask instead whether the policy carries medical-payments coverage; many do, and it pays without proof of fault.
- Send the preservation demand — or let me. The video is the case.
The record
Most lawyer websites say “aggressive” and “experienced.” Mine says this: I argue appeals. Four published decisions carry my name, and other plaintiff firms bring me their motions and appeals when a case gets hard. In a premises case, that means I build the file from day one for the summary-judgment motion the defense will file in month eighteen — the inspection log, the measurements, the prior complaints — rather than finding out then what's missing. The decisions are on the Case Results page; the longer explanation of slip-and-fall law is in Who Is Liable for a Slip and Fall in California? and the rest of the practice is on the Personal Injury page.
How it works
- Book the call or pick up the phone. Fifteen minutes, free, on your schedule.
- I give you a straight answer — whether there's a case, who is responsible, and what the deadline is. If the property is public, we talk about the six months first.
- If we go forward, you pay no attorney's fee unless we win. Premises cases are handled on contingency.
Questions people ask before they call
I fell, but I'm not sure anyone was at fault. Is it worth a call? Yes. Most people can't tell from the floor whether there was a sweep log. The call is how you find out whether the facts that matter exist.
The store says there's no video. Stores say that. Sometimes it's true; often the system overwrote it because no one asked in writing. That's why the preservation letter goes out immediately.
They offered to pay my medical bills if I sign. Don't sign. A release ends the claim before you know what the injury is. Ask about medical-payments coverage instead — it doesn't require a release.
I was looking at my phone. That may reduce your recovery by your share of fault; it doesn't end the case. The owner's duty doesn't depend on where you were looking.
It happened on a sidewalk. Who do I even sue? It depends on who owns and controls that stretch — the city, the county, or the adjacent owner — and that decides whether your deadline is six months or two years. Call before the six months runs.
How much does this cost? The first call is free. If I take your case, it's on contingency — no attorney's fee unless we win.
Where do you take cases? Based in Westlake Village. Ventura County, Santa Barbara County, and Los Angeles County primarily; anywhere in California for the right case.
Ready when you are
Book a free 15-minute case review or call/text (805) 630-3245
Pletcher Law, APC · Andrew S. Pletcher, State Bar No. 299437 · Westlake Village, California. Attorney advertising. The information on this page is general information about California law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.