A fall on someone else's property does not automatically mean the property owner pays for it. Florida law requires proof that a property owner knew, or reasonably should have known, about a dangerous condition before the injury. At Frankl Kominsky Injury Lawyers, our West Palm Beach premises liability lawyer team builds that proof through inspection logs, maintenance records, and video footage that is rarely produced unless someone asks for it by name.

Call us before those records get overwritten or thrown out, since many businesses recycle surveillance footage on a rolling schedule measured in days rather than months.

What Do You Actually Have to Prove in a Premises Liability Case?

Florida Statute 768.0755 sets the bar for slip-and-fall claims against businesses: a store or property owner is only liable for a transitory hazard, such as a spill or wet floor, if it had actual knowledge of the danger or if the condition existed long enough that reasonable inspection would have caught it. A single wet spot that appeared moments before the fall is usually not enough on its own.

Comparative fault also plays a bigger role than most clients expect. Under Florida Statute 768.81, a jury can assign a percentage of blame to the injured person, and anyone found more than 50 percent at fault recovers nothing at all.

A property owner's attorney will look for any reason to push that number past the halfway mark, from ignoring a posted warning sign to walking while looking at a phone, so the evidence gathered in the days after a fall genuinely shapes the outcome.

The difference between actual and constructive knowledge often comes down to timing evidence nobody thinks to preserve on their own. A spill that sat uncleaned for 20 minutes, tracked through security footage or an employee's own shift log, tells a very different story than one that appeared 30 seconds before someone walked through it, and building that timeline early is often the whole case.

Sweep logs are usually where that timeline lives. Many national retailers require a documented floor check on a set interval, and the gap between the last signed check and the fall is often the single most useful number in the file. When a store cannot produce the log at all, that absence tends to work against the owner rather than the injured customer.

Property Types and Incidents We Handle Across Palm Beach County

Not every premises liability claim involves a grocery store floor. Our team regularly works cases involving:

Slip and fall injuries at retail stores, restaurants, and hotels
Trip hazards from broken pavement, torn carpet, or missing handrails
Parking garage falls tied to poor lighting or structural defects
Swimming pool and balcony injuries at condos, resorts, and rentals
Assaults and robberies linked to inadequate apartment or hotel security
Injuries from falling merchandise, unsecured displays, or stacked stock in retail stores

Each of these categories relies on a different set of records and a different legal standard, so the first step in any case is figuring out exactly which one applies.

How Does a West Palm Beach Unsafe Property Injury Attorney Handle Negligent Security Claims?

Negligent security cases, the kind that follow an assault or robbery at an apartment complex or hotel, changed substantially under recent Florida tort reform. Florida Statute 768.0701 now requires a jury to weigh the fault of everyone who contributed to the harm, including the person who committed the crime, which can reduce what a property owner ultimately pays.

Florida Statute 768.0706 goes further for multifamily residential properties, creating a presumption against liability when an owner has installed specific safety measures, including lighting, working locks, and entry and exit cameras with footage kept for at least 30 days.

That presumption is not automatic protection for every landlord. If a property skipped even one of the required measures, or if cameras sat broken for months before the attack, the presumption falls away, and the case proceeds like any other negligence claim. Getting the maintenance and security logs early, while the record still reflects conditions on the day of the attack, often decides whether that presumption holds up.

Hotels and short-term rentals face a slightly different analysis than apartment complexes, since the presumption reaches only residential buildings of at least five dwelling units, not transient lodging. That distinction matters when a guest is assaulted in a parking area or stairwell, because the property owner cannot always lean on the same defense a residential landlord might raise.

The 30-day retention figure carries more weight than it first appears. Many systems keep footage for a shorter window by default, and a property that claims compliance while running a seven-day loop cannot show the conditions on the night in question. A written preservation request sent in the first week is usually what keeps that footage from cycling out.

What Does Our Track Record in Slip, Trip, and Fall Cases Look Like?

Property injury work makes up a steady share of our caseload rather than an occasional file, and we have handled slip, trip, and fall and premises liability claims throughout South Florida for decades.

Frankl Kominsky Injury Lawyers has recovered over $250 million for injured clients statewide, supported by 60+ years of combined injury law experience and 2,000+ verified client reviews.

Results may vary. Prior case outcomes do not guarantee similar results.

Our attorneys have been recognized by Super Lawyers, the National Trial Lawyers Top 40 Under 40 and the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum, and we hold an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau.

Partner Steven L. Frankl handles catastrophic injury and premises liability matters statewide, and we represent injured clients throughout Palm Beach, Broward, Dade, St. Lucie and Martin counties.

Property injury cases often hinge on details that surface only through a site visit, not a photograph taken on a phone. Our team walks the location, measures lighting and step heights where relevant, and talks to nearby employees or tenants before memories fade or staff turn over. Call our Boynton Beach office at 561-800-8000 to get that started.

How Long Do You Have to File a Property Owner Negligence Lawsuit in West Palm Beach?

Florida generally gives injured people two years from the date of the fall or injury to file a premises liability lawsuit, a deadline shortened from four years when lawmakers passed House Bill 837 in 2023 and amended Florida Statute 95.11. That two-year window applies to claims against private businesses, landlords, and homeowners.

Claims against a government entity, such as an injury on a city sidewalk or at a county-owned building, follow an entirely different set of rules. Florida Statute 768.28 requires written notice of the claim to the agency within three years, and also to the Department of Financial Services unless the defendant is a municipality or county.

Once the agency has had its chance to respond, a claimant has four years from the date the claim accrued to file suit. Missing the notice step can end a valid claim before it ever reaches a courtroom, regardless of how strong the underlying evidence is.

Neither deadline changes how quickly evidence actually disappears in practice. Surveillance systems overwrite themselves on a loop, incident reports get filed and forgotten, and witnesses move away long before either legal clock runs out, which is why an early call matters even when the deadline looks distant.

Florida's Rainy Season and Slip-and-Fall Claims in West Palm Beach

Summer in West Palm Beach brings predictable afternoon thunderstorms, and stores along Okeechobee Boulevard and inside CityPlace face wet floors every time one rolls through. A property that fails to deploy mats, cones, or a mop crew during a storm surge often cannot claim the water was a surprise, since the weather pattern itself is entirely foreseeable in South Florida.

Snowbird season adds a different risk, with crowded parking garages and hotel lobbies from November through April straining maintenance staff sized for a quieter summer. Hurricane season adds its own hazards, from downed branches on sidewalks to broken pavement outside businesses that reopen before repairs finish. We know which maintenance logs to request for each type of incident, because these seasonal patterns repeat every year.

Insurers know this seasonal pattern too, and they routinely pull National Weather Service data to argue a storm was so severe nobody could have kept the floors dry in time. That argument works less often than adjusters hope, since businesses operating here year after year are expected to plan for a rainy season that arrives every summer.

Where Do These Cases Get Filed and Litigated?

Most premises liability lawsuits arising in West Palm Beach are filed in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, based at the Palm Beach County Courthouse on Dixie Highway. Our office in Boynton Beach sits close enough to make regular court appearances, site inspections, and meetings with local witnesses part of the normal routine rather than a special trip.

Local knowledge matters here in ways that go beyond geography. Juries drawn from Palm Beach County residents bring their own sense of what reasonable maintenance looks like at a Publix, a Clematis Street bar, or a beachfront resort, and a case presented by an attorney who understands that context lands differently than one built from a generic script.

Outside testimony often rounds out these cases, from an engineer who can explain why a staircase violated code to a security consultant who can speak to industry-standard lighting for a parking structure. Choosing a witness matched to the specific property type tends to carry more weight with a Palm Beach County jury.

Discovery in these cases usually includes a formal request to inspect the property itself, which lets an engineer measure the actual step height, tread depth, or lighting level rather than argue from photographs. Conditions change once a hazard is repaired, so that inspection is worth requesting early, while the property still resembles what it was on the day of the injury.

FAQs: West Palm Beach Premises Liability Lawyer

The questions below cover situations that come up often but rarely get addressed on a general overview page.

Can the property owner avoid responsibility by saying the hazard was open and obvious?

Sometimes, but not always. Florida courts still ask whether a reasonable property owner should have fixed or better warned about a dangerous condition even if it was visible, particularly in areas where people are naturally distracted, such as checkout lines or crowded entrances.

Am I still covered if I was injured while trespassing on someone's property?

Generally, property owners owe less duty of care to trespassers than to invited guests, though Florida law carves out exceptions for children drawn to a hazard like an unfenced pool, known as the attractive nuisance doctrine, and for cases involving willful or wanton conduct.

What happens if I was partly responsible for my own fall?

Florida's comparative fault rule reduces your recovery by your percentage of responsibility, so a jury that finds you 20 percent at fault would reduce a $100,000 award to $80,000. Cross the 50 percent threshold, however, and the claim recovers nothing.

Does the store's own incident report help my claim or hurt it?

It usually helps, which is why the form is worth completing before you leave. An incident report fixes the date, the location, and the fact that management was told, and a missing report is often harder to explain than an imperfect one. Ask for a copy, and photograph the hazard yourself before it is cleaned up.

I was hurt as a visitor on an active construction site. Does that count as premises liability?

It can, depending on who controlled the area where the injury happened and what role, if any, your own employer played. These cases often involve multiple potentially responsible parties working under separate contracts.

How much does it cost to have Frankl Kominsky Injury Lawyers review my case?

Nothing up front. We handle premises liability cases on contingency, so our fee comes out of money recovered for you, and the initial consultation carries no cost or obligation.

What if I was hurt at a friend's or family member's house rather than a business?

A premises liability claim in West Palm Beach, Florida, against a private homeowner typically gets paid through that homeowner's insurance rather than out of pocket, worth knowing before anyone hesitates to file out of concern for the relationship.

Start Building Your Premises Liability Claim Today

Property owners and their insurers move quickly once they learn a claim is coming, and hazards get repaired while footage cycles out on its own schedule. Never Settle For Less ® is how we approach every case at Frankl Kominsky Injury Lawyers, and we can begin preserving that evidence the same day you call.

Call us at 561-800-8000, with Spanish-speaking and Creole-speaking staff ready to assist. Complete the online contact form for a free case review, and let a West Palm Beach premises liability attorney on our team look at what happened before the property owner's version of events becomes the only one on record.

West Palm Beach Premises Liability Attorneys