Why won’t an attorney take my slip and fall case?

Generally a slip and fall in Tennessee is a losing battle.  Why?  Comparative Fault or, simply stated, “watch where you are going”.

Here’s a recent TN case where the plaintiff (the injured one) was going into a bank, while it was icy outside.  It appears that the drive through windows was open at the time, but he parked, got out of his car and fell on the ice.  I suspect that the plaintiff was advancing a theory that the bank should have put out more salt or had all the ice cleared.  Well, maybe yes, but no state has ever held that a property owner has the duty to hold back nature.  Which is exactly what that theory often amounts to.  More importantly, the plaintiff recognized the danger, which was “open and obvious”, and decided to take his chances anyway.

This case tells us that “open and obvious” dangers are still a viable defense in Tennessee.  If we did not have drive through windows, ATMs and online banking, the plaintiff might have had a better shot, but as it is, he really did not have much of a reason to get out of his car, or  even leave his house.

Gotta go, I need to log on and check my bank balances….

This entry was posted on September 24, 2008 at 1:10 pm and is filed under Litigation, Injury Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.