Slip and Fall Personal Injury Attorney and Lawyers in Melbourne, Palm Bay and Brevard County Florida

Slip and fall lawsuits are personal injury tort cases and sometimes can be some of the hardest cases to nail down and get a settlement from. That is why, if you have been injured by slipping, tripping or any kind of fall somewhere, you will be well advised to get immediate legal representation from a qualified attorney or lawyer. We can’t stress that word enough in these cases, immediate! Your attorney will make sure your injuries are properly documented from the moment you first receive medical attention, but just as important, make sure any evidence is preserved, photographed or secured, so it is not destroyed or deliberately eliminated.


As we said, slip and fall cases are some of the hardest cases to get satisfactory settlements in. Let’s start out by making it clear that simply because you slip and fall in a huge store such as a Walmart, worth billions of dollars, doesn’t mean you have a lawsuit and doesn’t mean you will ever get one cent in a settlement. In a slip and fall claim, the plaintiff has to prove that the defendant actionably did something wrong or negligent that directly caused the injury. Having said that, don’t hesitate to see if you do have a case, because often you will. This is exactly why you need to consult a qualified attorney immediately, if you have been injured in a slip and fall. A qualified attorney will know if you have a case and will know exactly what to do.

Arcadier, Biggie & Wood, PLLC, is a premier slip and fall law firm for Palm Bay, Melbourne, Cocoa Beach, Viera, all of Brevard County and Central Florida. We will handle any type of slip and fall law firm case. If you or someone in your family has suffered a slip and fall law and are looking for aggressive representation, we will go to court and fight for you. Call us today and we will be glad to give you a free consultation and discuss all your options with you. We will represent you and fight for you against any negligent party, no matter who they are, or how big they are.

What Typically Happens in a Slip and Fall Case

Slip and fall injury cases can take two courses, put simply, they can go the easy way or the hard way. Usually the most typical, and the easy way to go about settling a slip and fall case, is the plaintiff hires a qualified attorney, they file a claim against the defendant or their insurance company and the two parties reach an equitable settlement agreement.

If that fails, then you and your attorney will have to go the hard way. You move from filing a claim to filing a lawsuit and taking them to court to have your case heard in front of a judge and a jury. This is where having a qualified slip and fall attorney is extremely important.

Requirements For a Slip and Fall Case

Slip and fall cases, as we’ve said, are tricky in a lot of ways, because there are so many variables in so many areas of the case. From the level of injury and loss, to the amount of the defendant’s responsibility or negligence, what kind of negligence it was, were there building code violations, was the plaintiff careless or negligent, etc. In order to file a successful slip and fall case or lawsuit, you must first have significant enough cause and your case must fulfill at least these two general requirements:

  • The property owner or business was negligent, at fault, or did not act reasonably to prevent the slip and fall from being able to occur
  • The injured party was not being exceedingly careless

These are the areas where things can get complicated. What factors in when determining this part of the case is exactly how negligent or at fault the property owner or business was. Businesses are expected to keep their property safe at all times, which means they must keep hazards such as spills and objects that may trip cleaned up and cleared up with reasonable diligence. What does this mean? Let’s take a spill for an example; if an employee spills something on the floor or sees or is notified of a spill, their responsibility is to secure the area and clean it up immediately, because they are aware of it.

Conversely, if the business was not aware of a spill in any way, it makes for a more complicated case. Another example is a bathroom slip and fall from water. Businesses are reasonably expected to inspect their bathrooms once an hour and record it. If a spill and slip and fall occurs without the bathroom being inspected, then you have a case. But there again, proving the bathroom was not inspected is the key. Again, all this is why you need a qualified slip and fall lawyer.

Also the injury must not have been caused in any way by the excessive carelessness of the plaintiff.

As a final and simple example, let’s look at cases where there were obvious building code violations. These are easy to document and are typically an easy case to win.

How Much Will I Get Awarded?

This part is complicated, mainly because of the tricky process of determining how much any particular injury is worth. Injury damages are based on the actual type of physical damage done to the person, the severity of the injury and many other variables that will factor into negotiating or being awarded a monetary amount for the damage.

Every case is different, all injuries are different. How an injury affects a particular individual is individualized. We often hear of some outrageous cases where a Plaintiff gets millions for a spilled coffee. However, these cases are oftentimes glorified by the media, omit many relevant facts, and is presented in an intellectually dishonest way. Additionally, the cases that do make the news are less than .1% of the cases that are filed. In most cases, a Plaintiff who proves that Defendant did something wrong, gets put in the state in which the Plaintiff was before the accident; this means that a Plaintiff, if he prevails on liability, gets the just value of his injuries which may include pain and suffering. As such, you should avoid making assumptions about your case, and never, ever, compare your case to a case you heard about.

Arcadier, Biggie & Wood, PLLC, is a slip and fall law firm serving Palm Bay, Melbourne, Cocoa Beach, Viera and Brevard Counties and all of Central Florida. We will be glad to help and advise you every step of the way, from initial consultation, to going to trial if that is where your case ends up. If you’ve suffered a slip and fall in your family due to the negligence of another party or parties, call us today to set up your free consultation so we can discuss your case and your options with our lawyers.