Kentucky has laws in place to protect the rights of those who lawfully enter another’s property but are injured there. Premises liability law, as it’s called, can be complex, but the following are just a few of the basic tenets.
It begins with the acknowledgment that property owners have a duty to provide a reasonably safe environment. The property must be free of any dangerous conditions. These can include potholes in the parking lot, ice on the sidewalk, mopped floors with no warning signs, uncovered cables, torn carpeting, a loose railing, and poor lighting in a stairwell. On the other hand, entrants must exercise reasonable care as well.
Entrants must also be lawful, but there is an exception made in favor of children who trespass. Under the doctrine of attractive nuisance, property owners in this state must do what they can to safeguard swimming pools, trampolines and anything else that might attract children.
Victims must prove that the property owner should have been aware of the dangerous condition that caused their injury. They must show that the owner had enough time to fix it, too. If one were to slip on water caused by a leak that only appeared the previous day, one would have a hard time arguing a case.
That an owner “should have known” about a danger can be difficult to argue, too, and so those who intend to file a claim involving premises liability may want a lawyer to represent them. Legal representation may be helpful in other ways as the lawyer may hire investigators to gather evidence of the owner’s negligence. They may obtain a copy of the incident report and see if there is any camera footage of the incident. Medical experts may come in to determine the extent of injuries.