Every day innocent victims are injured or killed in Nevada auto accidents. Our attorneys can help you to get justice and compensation.
Auto Accidents
Every day innocent victims are injured or killed in Nevada auto accidents. Our attorneys can help you to get justice and compensation.
Premises Liability
Nevada law requires property owners to maintain safe conditions. When they fail to do so, and people get injured, our lawyers are here to help.
24/7 Help:
(702) 919-1900
Please note: Our firm only handles criminal and DUI cases, and only in California. We do not handle any of the following cases:
And we do not handle any cases outside of California.
Call Us NowPosted on
A spilled glass of water on a hotel lobby floor would probably not be an obvious hazard since water is clear, and other patrons might reasonably miss it; therefore, the hotel would probably have a duty to clear the spill as soon as possible and to put up a “Warning: Wet Floor” sign in the meantime.
But a pond on someone’s private property is an obvious hazard: It is so big that any reasonable person would see it, and the property owner does not need to post signs to warn friends about it. If a guest stands by the edge of the pond for a selfie, and then falls in, the guest probably would not have a winnable negligence case against the property owner: Since the pond was” open and obvious,” the guest should have known that standing near the edge would be risky.
Other examples of potential hazards that are obvious include:
While people can and do sustain injuries from walkways, escalators, and staircases all the time, property owners usually have no duty to warn people about them. This is because any reasonable person would notice something as “open and obvious” as a walkway, escalator, and staircase and then try to be careful using them. So if someone gets injured on a functional walkway, escalator, or staircase by their own fault (such as by running or being drunk), then the property owner can claim the “open and obvious” defense.
A pond is an example of an open and obvious hazard that does not typically require a warning.
Not all obvious hazards are the same, and some have dangerous conditions that are hidden. In these cases, property owners may have a duty to warn against them. Examples include:
It is not foreseeable that walkways would be bumpy, or that escalators would be slippery, or that staircases would be uneven; therefore, property owners In these situations arguably would not be able to claim “open and obvious conditions” as a defense if someone injures him/herself. Instead, they may have the duty either to fix these dangerous conditions, cordon them off, and/or warn guests about them.
A former Los Angeles prosecutor, attorney Neil Shouse graduated with honors from UC Berkeley and Harvard Law School (and completed additional graduate studies at MIT). He has been featured on CNN, Good Morning America, Dr Phil, The Today Show and Court TV. Mr Shouse has been recognized by the National Trial Lawyers as one of the Top 100 Criminal and Top 100 Civil Attorneys.