Lakeland Premises Liability Lawyer


Accidents and injuries can happen just about anywhere in Lakeland. Patrons can slip and fall at Munn Park area restaurants. Kids can suffer injuries in the backyards of homes in neighborhoods like Lake Bonny and South Lake Morton. Harmful incidents can occur in parking lots at Linder airport, in the lobbies of hotels on Harden Boulevard, and anywhere else Lakeland residents, workers, and visitors go about their everyday lives.
lakeland premises liability lawyer
If you suffered injuries in a preventable accident or incident at a property you do not own in Lakeland, Florida’s premises liability laws may entitle you to receive significant financial compensation. The Fernandez Firm Accident Injury Attorneys represent individuals like you in legal actions seeking payment for harm suffered because of dangerous conditions on someone else’s property.

Contact us today to learn how we can help you get the money you deserve for the injuries and losses you suffered in a Lakeland-area premises liability incident.

Meet Our Firm

Frank and Jennifer Fernandez bring a wealth of experience to every Lakeland premises liability case they take. Partners in law and life, they have on behalf of injured Floridians for more than two decades. Over the years, they have amassed an impressive track record of results in personal injury and wrongful death cases throughout the Sunshine State, including numerous cases involving injuries sustained by their clients at someone else’s residential, commercial, or public property.

Our past results do not guarantee future success. They do, however, demonstrate that Lakeland premises liability victims can trust us with even the most complicated and challenging cases. We want to win, and we know how it’s done.

What Premises Liability Means For Injured Victims Like You

As you go about your life in Lakeland, you have the right to expect that others will take reasonable care to avoid causing you harm. People who violate that basic obligation to you by engaging in careless, reckless, or intentionally harmful actions, or by making dangerous decisions detrimental to your safety and wellbeing, should face legal and financial accountability for any injuries they cause you or your loved one to suffer.

That basic principle applies whenever you set foot on someone else’s property in Lakeland. If you go somewhere owned by someone else, and an unreasonably dangerous condition on that property causes you injuries and losses, the owner or other person responsible for failing to keep you safe will owe you damages for the harm you suffered. Lawyers call this “premises liability.”

The laws and rules surrounding premises liability can get complicated, and we won’t get into the details here. All you need to know as a victim of an accident or incident on someone else’s property is this:

If you got hurt because of a dangerous condition on a property you don’t own in Lakeland, then chances are you have the right to compensation, and a skilled premises liability lawyer can help you get it.

The best way to learn about your rights in that situation is to contact an experienced team of Lakeland premises liability lawyers, like Frank and Jennifer Fernandez, as soon as possible.

Common Lakeland Premises Liability Scenarios

Here are some illustrations of the types of situations that can lead to someone getting hurt and having a premises liability claim in Lakeland.

Falls

Perhaps the most common and well-known type of premises liability incident involves a visitor to a property slipping and falling on a wet floor. That is why people sometimes refer to premises liability cases as slips and falls.

But premises liability isn’t just limited to slippery floors. Any dangerous property condition can lead to a fall that a Lakeland property owner should have taken reasonable steps to prevent.

People fall and get hurt in Lakeland all the time under circumstances that aren’t their fault.

Premises liability cases involving preventable falls can include:

  • Slipping on cooking oil or tomato sauce from a broken container in a grocery store aisle
  • Slipping on wet tiles in a restaurant lobby after a rainstorm
  • Tripping on cracked or broken pavement on a medical center’s walkway
  • Falling on stairs because of poor lighting or broken handrails
  • Falling from a hotel room balcony with a loose or unsafe railing
  • Falling because of a malfunctioning elevator or escalator at a shopping center

In short, if you fell because of a slippery or uneven floor surface anywhere other than in your home in Lakeland, chances are you have rights to compensation for your injuries.

Drownings and Near Drownings

Numerous residences, hotels, and public properties in Lakeland feature swimming pools, as well as man-made or natural water bodies. Owners of those facilities must take reasonable steps to keep them safe for visitors and must take special care to safeguard them against injuries to children.

Tragedy can strike quickly around any unattended or unsafe body of water in Lakeland. A child who does not know how to swim can fall into a backyard swimming pool. An elderly swimmer can suffer a health emergency at a pool that lacks basic life-saving equipment. A golfer can lose his footing on an unsafe footbridge and fall into a pond.

Florida premises liability law may entitle you to compensation if the owner of any water body in Lakeland could have, and reasonably should have, prevented you or a loved one from drowning or nearly drowning.

Violent Crime

Lakeland is a relatively safe city according to Florida Department of Law Enforcement annual data, but that does not mean it’s immune from violent crime. Property owners and others must keep their guests reasonably safe from known or foreseeable criminal threats. Failure to take common-sense steps to ensure guest safety may result in liability.

For example, a victim of violent crime in Lakeland may have a claim for damages against the property owner or others responsible for the operation of a property if:

  • A lack of lighting in a parking lot gives a mugger a place to hide
  • A malfunctioning or non-existent lock on a hotel door gives a perpetrator of sexual assault access to a room.
  • A security guard falls asleep or fails to perform basic duties, allowing a crime to occur.

Crime victims sometimes make the mistake of thinking they have no way to obtain money damages for the harm they suffered, especially if the perpetrator is incarcerated and unable to pay compensation. At the Fernandez Firm Accident Injury Attorneys, we encourage crime victims to speak with us about whether the circumstances of their injuries may allow for a premises liability claim.

Poisonings and Toxic Exposures

Sometimes, the most dangerous hazards on properties in Lakeland are invisible to the human eye. They consist of toxins in our air, drinking water, building materials, and food that, in sufficient quantities or over sufficient lengths of time, can make us sick and even kill us.

Lakeland property owners, occupants, and managers owe their visitors, guests, and residents an obligation to protect them from dangerous toxins. Some of those obligations are written out explicitly in building codes, health and sanitation laws, and local ordinances. Others are simply part of what lawyers refer to as the “common law”, which consists of the rulings of Florida courts over time that hold property owners responsible for environmental hazards that poison others.

Premises liability cases that involve poisoning or toxic exposure may include:

  • Hotel guests sickened by waterborne pathogens in a swimming pool
  • Restaurant patrons poisoned by contaminated or unclean food
  • Manufacturing workers exposed to dangerous chemicals without adequate safety equipment
  • Office workers who suffer long-term exposure to cancer-causing building materials or fumes
  • Children in rental housing poisoned by lead paint, mold, or pet waste.

Poisoning and toxic exposure can constitute some of the most terrifying and uncertain of all premise liability injuries. The Fernandez Firm Accident Injury Attorneys fight to make sure that justice is served when property owners subject others to potentially deadly environmental hazards.

Fires, Floods, and Other Preventable Disasters

Local and state building codes also mandate that property owners in Lakeland take measures to safeguard their premises against foreseeable natural and man-made disasters. For example, buildings must be structurally sound, must withstand extreme Florida weather (including heat, salt, and even hurricanes), and must meet fire safety standards by having fire alarms, exits, and equipment.

People in Lakeland can suffer serious and fatal injuries when property owners and others fail to live up to those standards. Buildings that are unequipped for fire, rain, wind, and the elements can burn or collapse, causing harm on a wide and catastrophic scale and entitling victims to compensation from the parties who should have acted reasonably to keep them safe.

Miscellaneous Hazards

The categories above capture many of the scenarios that may lead to premises liability cases in Lakeland, but not all. At The Fernandez Firm Accident Injury Attorneys, we have learned over the years that people can get hurt in ways that are hard to predict. Then they happen and you realize that someone should have recognized the hazard all along.

For example:

  • An aging boiler in an apartment building starts sending scalding hot water through the pipes, burning residents taking their morning showers.
  • A chandelier in a hotel ballroom comes loose from the ceiling and falls on a group of wedding guests.
  • Heat and humidity eat away at a concrete hotel balcony until, one day, it gives way under the weight of a single person.

No matter how an accident or incident occurs on someone else’s property in Lakeland, The Fernandez Firm Accident Injury Attorneys has the resources and experience to hold the at-fault parties accountable and to get the victims the compensation they deserve.

How We Help Lakeland Premises Liability Victims

Frank and Jennifer put their decades of experience to work for victims of premises liability injuries in Lakeland by:

  • Investigating premises liability accidents and incidents to figure out how they happened and who should bear the blame.
  • Evaluating victims’ claims to determine how much money they deserve to receive as compensation.
  • Answering victims’ questions about their rights and explaining their options in straightforward, easy-to-understand language.
  • Preparing strong, credible, convincing legal claims to present to insurance companies and in court.
  • Negotiating settlements with defense lawyers and insurance companies, if possible.
  • Litigating their clients’ cases in Polk County courts, including by going to trial when necessary, to win judgments and jury verdicts.
  • Collecting the money owed to their clients from the parties with liability.

At every stage of a case, we put our clients’ interests first. We know what it takes to win, and we always aim to put our clients in the strongest possible position to receive maximum compensation for their injuries and losses.

As we mentioned above, we cannot guarantee success.

However, in many of our past premises liability cases, our clients have obtained compensation for:

  • Current and future medical expenses related to treating their premises liability injuries and any related health conditions, no matter how long-lasting.
  • Other current and future non-medical expenses that our clients wouldn’t have faced if not for their premises liability injuries.
  • All lost wages and income attributable to their injuries, such as because they missed work while in the hospital, or suffered a permanently disabling injury.
  • Pain, suffering, and diminished quality of life owing to the physical and emotional trauma they have endured and will continue to face in the future.

In some cases, we can also seek punitive damages to our clients, when extreme or intentional wrongful conduct led to their premises liability injuries.

lakeland premises liability lawyer
Premises Liability Lawyer, Frank Fernandez

Experienced Lakeland Premises Liability Lawyers Who Fight for You

If you or a loved one suffered injuries because of a dangerous condition on a property in Lakeland that you do not own, you may have the right to financial compensation from the property owner and anyone else who reasonably should have kept you safe.

The Fernandez Firm Accident Injury Attorneys wants to help. Contact us today at (863) 230-8361 for your free consultation to learn about your rights and options for getting justice and the money you need.