Property owners have a duty to keep their premises reasonably safe. When they fail and someone is hurt, the law provides a remedy.
Premises liability holds property owners and occupiers responsible for injuries caused by unsafe conditions they knew about or should have discovered.
Florida premises liability law grades the duty a property owner owes according to the injured person's status, whether an invitee, a licensee, or a trespasser. An invitee, such as a customer, is owed the highest duty, including a duty to maintain the premises in a reasonably safe condition and to warn of hidden dangers the owner knew or should have known about.
Under changes enacted by House Bill 837 in 2023, the general deadline to file a negligence lawsuit in Florida is now two years from the date of the injury under Section 95.11(5)(a) of the Florida Statutes, reduced from the four-year period that applied to injuries occurring before March 24, 2023.
The same 2023 law adopted a modified comparative negligence standard under Section 768.81, which bars recovery entirely for a plaintiff found to be more than fifty percent at fault for their own injury. Below that threshold, a recovery is reduced in proportion to the plaintiff's share of fault.
For slip-and-fall injuries specifically, Florida requires the injured person to prove that the business had actual or constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition, a standard set out in Section 768.0755 of the Florida Statutes.
The District of Columbia applies common-law premises liability principles, requiring property owners to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances to keep their property safe for lawful visitors and to address or warn of hazards they knew or should have known about.
In the District of Columbia, the deadline to file most personal injury lawsuits is three years from the date of the injury.
The District follows the doctrine of contributory negligence, one of the strictest fault rules in the country, under which a plaintiff found even slightly at fault can be barred from recovering. A statutory exception softens this rule for pedestrians, cyclists, and other vulnerable road users injured in vehicle collisions.
Because the District bars recovery for a plaintiff who is even partly at fault, the defense in these cases frequently focuses on whether the injured person should have seen and avoided the hazard, which makes the factual record critical.
The firm moves quickly to preserve evidence, because conditions change and surveillance footage is often overwritten. That includes documenting the hazard, obtaining incident reports and maintenance records, and establishing what the owner knew and when. The goal is to show that the danger was known or knowable and that reasonable care would have prevented the injury.
Alec Kohn litigated complex civil matters at a prominent civil litigation firm before founding the firm. You work directly with the attorney on your case, and the firm is reachable 24 hours a day.
The figures on this page are drawn from the following primary and secondary sources. Statutes and penalties change; this summary is reviewed by the firm and is not a substitute for legal advice on your specific matter.
