Slip and fall injury lawyers for Hollywood, Pembroke Pines and Coral Springs premises liability claims
What a Florida premises case has to prove
A wet floor claim turns on a question that has little to do with how badly you were hurt: could the business have known the hazard was there? Florida put that requirement into statute in 2010. Under section 768.0755, someone who slips on a transitory foreign substance in a business establishment must prove the business had actual or constructive knowledge of the condition. Constructive knowledge means showing either that the condition sat there long enough for a reasonable employee to find it, or that it occurred so regularly it was foreseeable. That rule governs the transitory hazards behind most falls: water, oil, grease, dropped food, rain tracked in from a parking lot. It does not govern a broken step or a missing handrail, which are judged under ordinary negligence instead.
That single sentence explains why two people with identical injuries get opposite results. One fell in a puddle a camera shows sitting untouched for twenty minutes while three employees walked past it. The other fell in a spill that landed thirty seconds earlier. The Law Offices of Suarez & Montero build premises files backwards from the proof of notice: the recording, the sweep log, the incident report, the staffing that shift. Across south and west Broward, that work begins with a letter reaching the right department before the store system records over itself.
Premises liability is not one thing. A fall in a supermarket aisle, a trip over a raised sidewalk slab, a stair with no handrail, a parking lot pothole in the dark and a broken tile in an apartment breezeway are analysed differently and often against different defendants. The owner, the tenant running the store, the management company and the janitorial contractor may each hold a piece of the duty, and they will point at one another. As a customer you are an invitee: owed reasonable upkeep and a warning about dangers that are not obvious.
For a spill, a puddle or dropped food the statute controls and the burden sits with you. Constructive knowledge gets proved two ways. The first is time: dirty liquid with cart tracks through it, a melted ice patch with dried edges, browning produce, a footprint in a spill beside a timestamped receipt. All of that argues about minutes. The second is regularity: the freezer case that leaks every week, the entrance that floods whenever it rains, the misting shelf with no mat beneath it. A condition that repeats is foreseeable, and foreseeable is enough.
What you do in the first hour counts for more here than in most injury claims. Photograph the substance before anyone cleans it, close up and wide enough to show the aisle and the absence of a warning cone. Photograph your shoes. Ask for a manager, insist an incident report is written, and take its number and the manager name. Collect numbers from anyone who saw it. Then get examined: a gap between the fall and the first medical visit is the argument an adjuster leans on for the rest of the claim.
Then there is evidence you cannot gather yourself. Chain stores record continuously and overwrite on a cycle measured in days or weeks. Left alone, a store may preserve a two-minute clip that shows you going down and proves nothing about notice. What proves notice is the half hour before: who walked past, how often, and whether anyone looked down. That footage exists only if a written demand naming cameras, angles and a time window reaches the company quickly. Sweep logs and staffing records tell the same story from another angle.
Stores defend along a predictable line: the hazard was open and obvious, you were distracted, your footwear was wrong. Florida modified comparative negligence gives that argument teeth, since damages drop by your share of fault and a finding above 50 percent ends the claim outright. Deadlines are firmer. Negligence claims accruing on or after 24 March 2023 carry a two-year limitations period, and a fall on city or county property adds a written pre-suit notice requirement.
Falling in Hollywood, Pembroke Pines and Coral Springs
South and west Broward is retail country and the geography shows up in the files. Hollywood Boulevard mixes older storefronts with uneven sidewalk and small groceries where spills sit unattended. Pines Boulevard is big-box plazas and wide parking fields, where pallet debris and cracked asphalt cause as many falls as wet floors. University Drive runs supermarkets end to end, and Sample Road in Coral Springs adds shopping centres, gyms and medical plazas. Emergency care after a bad fall usually means Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood or Broward Health Coral Springs, and those records become the spine of the claim. Suits are filed at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, where these matters are also mediated.
Frequently asked questions
What do I have to prove to win a slip and fall case in Florida?
Four things: that the business owed you a duty as a lawful visitor, that a dangerous condition existed, that the business had actual or constructive knowledge of it under section 768.0755, and that the fall caused your injuries. Knowledge is where cases turn. Actual knowledge means an employee created the hazard or was told of it; constructive knowledge means it sat there long enough to be discovered, or happened often enough to be expected.
How long does a store keep its security footage?
There is no legal minimum and the practical answer is short. Many systems overwrite in roughly two to four weeks, some in days, and small independents in less. Once a business learns of a claim it must preserve relevant recordings, but it decides what is relevant unless someone specifies which cameras, which angles and how far back. A demand naming a window that opens well before the fall beats a general request.
What if I was partly at fault for not seeing the hazard?
You can still recover so long as you are not found more than 50 percent responsible. A jury assigns percentages and your award is reduced by yours. Looking at your phone or wearing sandals does not by itself defeat a claim, and shoppers are not required to keep their eyes on the floor; stores build displays precisely to pull attention upward.
To have a fall reviewed, call our Broward office on (954) 529-9377, Miami-Dade on 305-631-1911, or Duval and St. John on (904) 800-5297.
Who will handle your file
Attorney Jaime Suarez has represented injured people in South Florida for over 24 years. He graduated with highest honors from the University of Miami School of Law, and his practice runs from collision injuries and brain and spinal trauma to falls on commercial property, prescription errors, workplace accidents and fatal-accident claims. Premises cases reward preparation, and preparation is where these files are strongest.
Andres G. Montero, his partner at the firm, has secured over $20 million in verdicts and settlements. Both attorneys work from Florida, the firm has recovered millions for injured clients, and each matter gets the attention the client circumstances call for.
Have your fall reviewed
Tell us where you fell and what the store did next. The review is free and takes one phone call.
FOOTAGE FIRST
We ask in writing for the recording from well before your fall, not only the seconds around it
THE SWEEP LOG
Cleaning schedules and inspection sheets often reveal whether anybody actually walked that aisle in the previous hour
THE INCIDENT REPORT
Every chain writes one. A copy, its number and the manager name matter more than most people expect
Surveillance video records over itself on a timer. The letter goes first.
The Law Offices of Suarez & Montero handle premises injury claims in Hollywood, Pembroke Pines, Coral Springs and across Broward County. A case review costs nothing and the line stays open 24 hours a day. Reach the Miami-Dade office at 305-631-1911 or send an e-mail describing what happened. You owe a fee only if we recover for you.