Are Hotels And Casinos Liable For Slips And Falls?

What Are Some Common Hotel Accidents? 

You might not think of hotels as dangerous places. However, there are more ways to get hurt in a hotel or casino than you might realize. These are some of the most common situations that lead to injuries: 

You’re not likely to slip on a spilled drink in your own hotel room. However, if you’re staying in a hotel with an attached casino, bar, or restaurant, you might slip and fall there. Similarly, rumpled carpet or otherwise uneven flooring can cause guests to trip, fall, and injure themselves.

Shower Slips And Falls

If you aren’t careful when getting into or out of the shower (or even if you are careful and the shower is just especially slippery), you can easily fall. Shower falls can result in traumatic brain injuries, herniated discs, and broken bones.

Elevator Accidents

Hotels and casinos are responsible for keeping their elevators in good working order. Unfortunately, elevator accidents can cause very harmful or fatal injuries. For example, if a cable breaks and the elevator falls down many floors, the impact can cause catastrophic injuries.

Food Poisoning

You might contract food poisoning from contaminated food or water at a hotel. However, it’s very hard to know whether your food poisoning symptoms came from something served at the hotel or something you consumed beforehand.

Assaults

Hotel owners are responsible for taking reasonable precautions to keep their premises safe. For example, if the hotel has no lighting in the parking lot, guests may be more likely to be robbed or assaulted.

Swimming Pool Accidents

If a hotel has a swimming pool, there’s a chance that a guest may slip and fall on the pool deck. Other hazardous conditions, such as a too-high concentration of pool chemicals or a broken diving board, could also cause problems.

Is A Hotel Liable For Falls? 

Hotels can be liable for falls in some cases, but they aren’t always. Generally speaking, in order for the hotel to be liable for your fall, there must be some element of negligence. We’ll take a closer look at these elements later, but here’s a brief overview:

• If your injuries happened as a result of the hotel’s negligence or a hazard the hotel itself created, it might be liable for your injuries.
• If you acted carelessly or there was no negligence on the part of the hotel, it likely isn’t liable for your injuries.

Slip-and-fall lawyers will ask these two questions when determining whether the hotel is liable or not.

Should The Hotel Reasonably Have Known About The Hazard?

When it comes to premises liability cases, the answer to this question matters. In order to be legally considered negligent, the hotel must have known (or should reasonably have known) about a hazard.

For example, imagine that someone spills a drink in the hotel lobby near the front desk. Because the spill happened within the employee’s sight, the hotel should take action — like mopping up the spill and putting up wet floor signs.

Now, imagine that a guest spills water on the floor of their hotel room. They invite a friend over, and the friend slips on the spill and gets injured. In this case, the hotel couldn’t be expected to know about the spill, so it is unlikely to be held liable for the friend’s injury.

Did You Act Negligently?

If you were acting carelessly at the time of your injury, you might be partially or totally at fault. For example, most hotel pools include signs telling visitors there is no lifeguard on duty and advising them not to run on the pool deck. If you sprint around the pool, slip, and break your arm, there’s a good chance the hotel would not be liable for your injuries. 

The hotel may avoid liability for a number of reasons:

• Most people understand that water on a pool deck is common
• The hotel posted warnings telling guests they could use the pool at their own risk
• There were also warnings explicitly telling guests not to run 

Of course, many premises liability cases are not this straightforward. When you schedule your free consultation with us, we can review the particulars of your case and help you determine whether the hotel may be liable for your injuries.

Can You Sue For Injuries Occurring In A Hotel Shower?

The short answer here is “sometimes.” In order to successfully sue the hotel for a shower injury (or any other kind of injury), your legal team must be able to establish all of the following:

• The hotel had a duty of care toward you
• The hotel did not fulfill that duty
• That breach of duty directly led to your injuries
• You have recoverable damages as a result of your injuries

Here’s a closer look at each of these elements of negligence.

The Hotel Had A Duty Of Care

When a person or entity has a duty of care, it means they’re obligated to act in a certain way to protect the safety of someone else. 

Hotels have a duty of care to guests and visitors to maintain reasonably safe premises. For example, if a shower has a loose or broken handrail, the hotel should repair it — or, at the very least, warn guests of the potential danger.

Understanding what “duty of care” means can be complicated without specific examples, so here’s a look at some of the duties of care hotels owe their guests:

• Keeping stairways dry and well-lit
• Keeping walkways free from obstructions
• Promptly repairing showers, toilets, sinks, and other fixtures when needed
• Maintaining adequate indoor and outdoor lighting
• Making sure locks on rooms work properly
• Screening potential employees to prevent putting guests at risk
• Taking reasonable security measures on their premises
• Mopping up spills quickly
• Shoveling snow or putting down salt to keep walkways free of ice
• Warning guests of hazards (cordoning off areas, putting out wet floor signs, etc.)

Most of these duties of care come down to common courtesy. None of the actions above are particularly complex or difficult, but when it comes to protecting guest safety, they make a major difference.

The Hotel Violated That Duty

In order to be found liable for your injuries, a hotel must have somehow breached its duty of care. 

Suppose that your grandmother falls in the shower because of a faulty handrail. You learn that the previous guest told a hotel clerk about the handrail, but the manager chose not to fix it. In this case, the hotel may have violated the duty of care it had toward your grandmother and other guests.

On the other hand, suppose the shower is in good working order and equipped with an anti-slip mat, but your grandmother falls and is injured anyway. The hotel may not be liable because there’s no evidence it breached its duty of care.

That Breach Led To Your Injuries

To prove negligence in court, your legal team must also prove that the hotel’s breach of its duty of care was what directly caused your injuries. 

Take the previous example of the faulty handrail. Suppose that your grandmother sues the hotel to recover her medical expenses. To show that her injuries happened as a result of the broken handrail, her lawyer might use medical records from directly after the fall to show that it directly caused her harm.

You Have Recoverable Damages

In a personal injury lawsuit, your legal team must show that you have actual damages to recover. Damages are compensation for losses you suffered as a result of your injuries. There are many types of damages in personal injury claims, but these are some of the most common:

• Medical bills
• Lost wages
• Short-term or long-term disability
• Pain and suffering
• Loss of quality of life

Most personal injury attorneys only take on cases that have a certain threshold of damages to recover. 

For example, if you fall, suffer a bruise, and pay a $25 copay to get it checked out at the doctor’s office, you likely won’t find a casino injury attorney in Las Vegas willing to take your case. It takes time and effort to recover compensation for clients, and if a law office attempts to recover $25 for you, it may lose money in the process.

On the other hand, if your fall injuries include several broken bones and you have thousands of dollars in medical bills, a personal injury attorney is more likely to see your case as being worthwhile.

Hotel shower slip-and-fall settlements are meant to help a victim cover medical costs and other expenses. In such a case, there’s a good chance you could recover considerable compensation.

Have You Been Hurt In A Hotel Slip And Fall?

Winning a lawsuit for a slip-and-fall accident is a lot more nuanced than many people think. If you’ve fallen in a casino or a hotel and suffered serious injuries, you should reach out to a personal injury attorney for a free consultation.

Someone who doesn’t spend their days dealing with personal injury cases and hotel slip-and-fall settlements can find it hard to determine whether they have a viable case. However, at Adam S. Kutner, Injury Attorneys, our slip-and-fall lawyers have extensive experience helping people like you decide whether to pursue legal action. 

If we take your case, our Las Vegas premises liability lawyers will fight tirelessly to help you receive the compensation you deserve.