The Difference Between Personal Liability and Premises Liability

The Difference Between Personal Liability and Premises Liability

injury

Whenever anyone experiences an Evansville personal injury, there are many questions that need to be answered. How do you treat the injury? What caused the injury? What needs to be fixed to prevent the same issue from happening in the future, and, of course, who is liable for it?

In personal injury cases, there are typically two common types of liability that can be attributed to the injury: personal and premises. What’s the difference?

Personal Liability

grocery-shopping

You are shopping at a grocery store. Another shopper is not paying attention for whatever reason: maybe they are too busy scanning the shelves, or maybe they are texting while they push the shopping cart and are not paying attention to where they are or what is around them. While you are standing in the aisle, they hit you with their grocery cart. As a result, you fall over and injure your hip, and this injury requires surgery and multiple doctor visits. In this case, the person who hit you with the cart due to her own negligence can be held responsible under personal liability.

Personal liability occurs whenever someone personally does something negligent that causes harm to another person. Another common form of personal liability occurs when you cause damage to someone else’s possession. For example, if you are at the store and instead of hitting a person with your shopping cart, you hit someone else’s car with it, and the car undergoes damages from this, you could still be liable for the damages under personal liability.

Premises Liability

premises

You are at a friend’s house for a party. When walking to the bathroom, you trip on an uneven floor board and break your leg. This injury requires a significant amount of medical attention, and you are forced to miss many necessary days of work. You friend later admits that he was aware of the uneven floor board but had not gotten around to do anything about it. This is a form of negligence, and as a result, your friend can be held liable for your injury.

Unlike personal liability, this type of liability is associated with a personal injury that occurs on a premises of some sort. This liability can fall on the owner or the resident of the premises depending on the situation.

For example, if someone slips and falls at an Evansville restaurant because the staff did not wipe up a spill, the restaurant that rents the building would be liable for any injury that occurs as a result of this. However, if someone leaves their apartment and slips on ice that the maintenance crew failed to salt, the owner of the apartment may be held liable. Some types of premises liability may include:

  • Slip and fall cases
  • Poor maintenance
  • Failure of security
  • Fires
  • Toxic chemicals in the air
  • Ice incidents
  • Dog bites

When considering these types, it is important to note that in the case of premises liability, there is typically one of three people to be held liable for it: managers, occupiers, or owners.

Help from an Evansville Personal Injury Lawyer

If you were injured in Evansville in either a case of personal or premises liability, you could be entitled to compensation. Call Hensley Legal Group today for a free consultation or contact us online.