Shreveport Slip and Fall Lawyer

Slip and Fall Attorney in Shreveport, LA

Being injured due to another person’s negligence is never fun, but there is a silver lining to accidents that occur on other people’s properties. If you’ve sustained serious injuries, you may be eligible to recover damages with the help of a Shreveport slip and fall lawyer.

Trust Jacqueline A. Scott & Associates

You can rely on the team here at Jacqueline A. Scott & Associates to take your delictual action seriously and treat it like it’s the only case on our agenda. Our staff has over 75 years of combined experience handling slip and fall cases. We’ve recovered over $500,000,000 for our past clients.

Past Personal Injury case results don’t guarantee a similar outcome, and every case is different and must be evaluated on its own merits. However, we can advocate tirelessly to get you the money you deserve, too.

Why Hire a Slip and Fall Lawyer?

Nationwide, one in four Americans ages 65+ falls each year. Here in Louisiana, unintentional falls are the leading cause of non-fatal injury. They account for over 11,000 hospitalizations and over 140,000 emergency department visits.

Falls don’t just happen in the elderly. In 2024, 844 workers died in falls across the US, accounting for 17% of workplace deaths. A total of 145 of those workers were killed not in falls from height but in falls on the same level.

Slip and fall injuries can happen anywhere. While workers who were on the clock when their injuries occurred have access to workers’ compensation insurance to assist with bills and make up for lost wages, not everyone has that luxury.

If you’ve been injured in a fall on someone else’s property, you can hire a slip and fall lawyer to help you recover damages so that you can pay your bills and move on with your life.

Proving Negligence in a Louisiana Slip and Fall Case

Louisiana slip and fall cases are based on the principle of negligence. Negligence can be defined as a failure to be as careful as the situation requires. However, proving negligence alone isn’t enough to show you have reason to bring a delictual action. The property owner’s negligence must also have caused the accident victim to suffer an injury. Here’s what you’ll need to prove:

1. Duty. The property owner owed a duty of care to visitors.
2. Breach. The property owner failed to meet that duty.
3. Causation. The property owner’s failure led to an accident.
4. Damages. The accident caused you compensable injuries.

It’s the first two elements of a slip and fall case that are most likely to be contested during negotiations. Property owners, landowners, tenants, and contractors have a legal duty to keep their properties reasonably safe. However, visitors to others’ properties also have a responsibility to act in reasonable ways.

Understanding the Duty of Care

Property owners must use reasonable care to make sure that their properties are safe. This duty of care applies to visitors and guests who enter with permission. The specifics of what’s required by law depend on where your fall took place. Merchants have a more demanding duty of care to visitors than homeowners do. Generally, the duty of care requires property owners to:

• Inspect their properties periodically to look for dangerous conditions.
• Fix dangerous conditions or warn visitors about them.

If the fall takes place on a merchant’s property, the situation is a little different. In Louisiana, merchants have to use reasonable care to keep floors and aisles in a safe condition. Reasonable care can be defined as the level of care that a prudent store owner would use under the same or similar conditions.

There are four elements you’ll have to establish to show that the merchant was liable for your fall:

1. A dangerous condition created a foreseeable risk of harm.
2. The merchant created that condition or had constructive notice of it.
3. The merchant did not use reasonable care to protect you, as an invited visitor to their property, from harm.
4. The danger was present for long enough before your fall that the merchant should have known about it, even if they didn’t.

Similar standards exist for other property owners.

Duty of Care Depends on the Circumstances of the Case

What, exactly, is required of property owners depends on the specifics of the case. If a landowner is aware that visitors will be coming to their property, they are expected to inspect more frequently and exercise more caution surrounding repairs or warnings than someone who doesn’t expect visitors. To determine whether a property owner was in breach of their duty of care, the court will consider:

• The usefulness of the dangerous condition
• The likelihood and severity of possible harm
• Whether the danger was obvious
• What it would cost the property owner to fix the condition
• The visitor’s purpose for being on the property, including the nature of the activity they were engaged in, and whether it was inherently dangerous

Louisiana property owners don’t owe a duty of care to trespassers. However, they must avoid intentionally, willfully, or wantonly causing harm to them. There’s no duty to inspect the property for hidden hazards, but landowners must warn people they know to be trespassing about dangerous conditions.

Children are a special case. They’re often drawn to properties by attractive nuisances, which can include things like swimming pools, trampolines, or abandoned cars. When property owners know that children are trespassing on their land because it poses an attractive nuisance, they are required to take reasonable steps to protect the children from harm.

These steps could include placing warning signs, fencing off the property, or taking other safety measures.

Property Owner Notice

In Louisiana, property owners are only required to fix or warn about dangerous conditions when they are informed about the dangerous condition, or should know about it, with sufficient time to resolve the situation before guests arrive. Property owners can’t be expected to warn guests about or fix issues they are unaware of.

How to Prove Actual or Constructive Notice

If property owners didn’t create the conditions that caused your slip and fall, it can be challenging to prove that they were aware of them. Evidence you may be able to use to show constructive notice includes:

• Prior incident reports or complaints regarding the condition
• Maintenance reports that show prior efforts to fix the condition
• Inspection reports related to the condition
• Surveillance videos or photos that show how the condition came to be
• Testimony from others who saw the condition and reported it to the property owner
• Emails or other communications indicating that the dangerous condition was known to the property owner
• Testimony from the property owner or their agents
• Expert witness testimony to establish how long a substance had been on the floor

The key to constructive notice is showing how long the dangerous condition existed before it caused your injuries in Shreveport. The longer it was there, the more likely the courts are to side with the injured party regarding whether the property owner should have known about it.

Examples of Dangerous Conditions That Can Cause Slip and Fall Accidents

Slip and fall accidents occur for all kinds of reasons. Dangerous conditions that can cause people to slip or trip and fall, causing themselves injuries, include:

• Uneven surfaces, such as cracks or breaks in sidewalks
• Loose surface materials like rocks, gravel, or sand
• Slushy, snowy, or icy sidewalks
• Stairs that don’t meet local building codes
• Torn or unsecured carpets or rugs
• Foreign substances like liquids or foods on the floor in grocery stores like Brookshire’s
• Aisles or walkways that are partially blocked by products
• Tools or equipment left in walkways or aisles
• Spilled products
• Inadequate lighting
• Missing handrails
• Items hanging from shelves or ceilings

If your injuries were caused by one of the situations described above, you may have a valid slip and fall case. If another condition caused your injury, speak with a Shreveport slip and fall attorney regarding the viability of your case.

Comparative Negligence in Slip and Fall Cases

It’s often the case that landowners attempt to shift the blame for slip and fall accidents to accident victims. However, Louisiana is a modified comparative negligence state, meaning that accident victims may still be able to seek compensation for their damages if they are partially to blame for their accidents. You’re allowed to file a delictual action as long as you were determined to be 50% or less at fault for the accident.

Until January 1, 2026, Louisiana was a pure comparative negligence state, meaning that accident victims could still seek compensation even if they were 99% to blame for their accidents. The new comparative negligence rule applies to accidents that occurred on or after January 1, 2026. If your accident occurred before that date, the old pure comparative negligence rule will still be in effect.

Examples of ways that slip and fall accident victims can be held at fault include:

• Being on a part of the property where visitors aren’t allowed
• Not paying attention to where you were walking
• Being distracted by your phone or something else
• Wearing footwear that was inappropriate for the situation
• Being warned of the dangerous condition
• Being injured by a dangerous condition that was open and obvious

Open and obvious dangers are those that are clearly visible and should be noticed by a reasonable person exercising ordinary caution. Examples include things like snow or ice, large objects, or darkness. The fact that the condition was open and obvious doesn’t automatically act as a defense against liability in Louisiana. If the risk of harm from the condition outweighed its usefulness, the property owner still had a duty to address the situation or warn about it.

Assumption of Risk

When a person voluntarily and knowingly assumes the risk of an open and obvious danger, the injuries that result from it aren’t typically the property owner’s responsibility. This situation doesn’t usually apply to slip and falls, and it’s not a complete defense to landowner liability. It merely acts as a factor in deciding how much fault should be assigned to the accident victim versus the property owner.

FAQs

How Do You Get a Slip and Fall Settlement?

You can improve your chances of getting a slip and fall settlement by working with a dedicated Shreveport slip and fall attorney. Your lawyer can leverage their knowledge of slip and fall laws to help you file your action, assisting you with everything from filing paperwork to gathering evidence and negotiating a settlement with the liable party’s insurance company.

How Is Pain and Suffering Calculated in Louisiana?

Pain and suffering are calculated subjectively in Louisiana. There is no exact legal formula to determine what an accident victim should receive in terms of non-economic damages. Courts often use precedents set in prior cases to determine how much your case should be worth, comparing the specific injuries and facts of the case to the settlement amounts and verdicts of past cases to establish a baseline value.

How Likely Is a Slip and Fall Case to Be Successful?

How likely a slip and fall case is to be successful depends on whether you can prove that the property owner was negligent. You can show they were negligent by proving that there was a dangerous condition, the owner was aware of it or should have known about it, and the dangerous condition directly caused your accident, which caused you material harm.

What Are the Signs of a Good Settlement Offer?

The signs of a good settlement offer are that it covers 100% of your damages, including non-economic damages like pain and suffering, and gets the approval of your lawyer. Insurance companies often offer low settlements to people without lawyers, assuming that they will take the money without question. You should never accept a settlement without running it by an attorney first.

Your Shreveport Slip and Fall Lawyer

If you’ve been injured in an accident on another person’s property, you can work with a Shreveport slip and fall lawyer to seek compensation. The team at Jacqueline A. Scott & Associates is here to help. We’ve been representing clients in Louisiana for years, providing exceptional services in a compassionate setting.

We’re committed to advocating aggressively for accident victims, and we can help you, too. Contact us to schedule an initial consultation today at our Shreveport office, located at 1115 Pierremont Road.