(626) 584-5744
A wet floor is not automatically someone else’s fault. California does not make a property owner pay just because you got hurt there. The law asks something much narrower: did the owner know about the hazard, or should they have known by then? That one question decides most slip and fall cases in Pasadena.
What you actually have to prove
California Civil Code section 1714 says property owners must use reasonable care. Reasonable care is not perfection. A store does not need someone hovering over every spill. It does need to inspect. It needs to clean up what it finds, and warn people about what it has not fixed yet.
A claim breaks into four pieces. There was a dangerous condition. The owner knew about it, or it sat there long enough that they should have found it. They did not fix it or warn you, and that failure is what hurt you.
The second piece is where these cases are won and lost. Lawyers call it notice. The other three are usually easy to show.
Notice is a stopwatch, not an opinion
Picture a grape on a grocery store floor. Say a customer dropped it 30 seconds ago. The store had no real way to know. Now say it sat there 45 minutes. It is turning brown. Other carts have run through it. Nobody checked that aisle for 45 minutes, and a jury is allowed to decide the store should have found it.
So the question is never only what you slipped on. It is how long it was there.
The first few hours matter more than anything you do later. Photograph the hazard before someone cleans it up. Look for cart marks and dried edges, because those show time passed. Ask for an incident report and get a copy before you leave. If the building has cameras, that video is often the whole case. Many systems record over themselves in about 30 days.
If you fell on public property, you may have six months
Most California injury claims give you two years to file. A broken city sidewalk is different, and so is a county building or a public school. A claim against a government agency has to be filed in writing with that agency first. The deadline is six months from the day you were hurt. Miss it and the case is over before it starts.
People lose real claims this way. They assumed the sidewalk belonged to the house sitting next to it. If there is any chance you fell on public ground, find out who owns it fast.
Being partly at fault does not end your claim
California uses pure comparative fault. If you were looking at your phone, the defense will say so. A jury can put part of the blame on you. Say they assign you 25 percent. Your award drops by 25 percent and you still collect the other 75.
That is not the all-or-nothing rule most people expect. An adjuster telling you the fall was your own fault is not the end of the conversation. It is an opening position.
What the insurance company does first
The adjuster will call, and they will be friendly about it. They want a recorded statement covering how you fell and how you feel. Early on you do not know how bad the injury really is. A casual “I’m okay” turns into a quote used against you four months later, when your back still has not settled down. You are not required to give the other side’s insurer a recorded statement at all.
Where these happen in Pasadena
The same few places produce most of these falls. Grocery aisles, parking structures, and apartment stairwells with a loose handrail. Restaurant entryways on the first rainy day of the season are another one. A swimming pool injury runs on the same rules, just with a different hazard.
If you fell in one of them, photograph the spot before the property changes. It will. Our personal injury team handles premises claims across Pasadena and Los Angeles. The first conversation costs nothing. Call (626) 584-5744.
