Premises refers to the land, buildings and overall property owned by a person or a company. The law states that a property owner is responsible for ensuring that anyone on their premises has a reasonable level of safety. This requirement is known as premises liability. If a person or a company fails to provide this safety, you may have an injury claim case.
Premises Responsibility In Minnesota
There are three types of people who can enter onto your premises, and a store or homeowner has different degrees of responsibility to make sure others don’t get injured on their property. Here’s a look at the three groups and the responsibility that is owed:
Invitees – This is the most common group of people you may have on your premises if you are a business owner or an employee. Invitees are people who you invite onto your property for commercial or business reasons. For example, when you are on the jobsite, you are considered an invitee of your employer or the commercial building owner. If you own a business, customers who walk into your store are invitees. Workers and shoppers have to have a reasonable expectation of staying safe as invitees on the property. Premises owners have the highest degree of expectation of keeping invitees safe.
Licensees – These are people invited onto someone’s property for non-business reasons. If you have some friends over for a bonfire, they are considered licensees. A property owner is responsible for letting anyone invited onto their property know about any potential risks on the property, like that they have an electric fence or that one of the stairs is broken.
Trespassers – These are people that enter someone’s property without permission. As the property owner, you are not required to inform an intruder about your electric fence as you’re chasing them off your property, but you’re not allowed to use excessive force when having them removed.
Premises Liability Accidents in Minnesota
The most common premises liability accidents occur to employers or customers who slip while on someone else’s premises. Sometimes this occurs through negligence on the premises owner’s part, like if they failed to put a rug down in the winter and water made the store entrance slippery, while other times the injured individual hurt themselves because they weren’t paying attention. These factors will help determine how much your premises liability case is worth.
Another common premises liability injury we see is escalator and elevator injuries. The property owner needs to ensure these are in good working order and accepts the possibility that they could malfunction and cause injury. If you’ve been injured by an escalator, elevator or a slip and fall on someone else’s property, consider giving Hey Workers a call. We’ve helped numerous people seek a personal injury claim through a premises liability suit, and our extensive work with slip and fall injuries in the workers’ compensation field only makes us better prepared to argue your case. For more information or to talk to a lawyer, call 844-439-9675.
