Injured on someone else’s property in Missouri? That person could owe you compensation if your injuries resulted from their negligent upkeep of their property—a type of personal injury law known as premises liability. Here’s what you need to know.
What Does “Negligence” Mean in a Missouri Personal Injury Case?
Negligence in a personal injury case means someone failed to take reasonable steps to avoid injuring another party to whom they owe a duty of care. Negligence can involve someone’s actions or their inactions, such as failing to repair a broken step on stairs. What matters is whether the liable party took reasonable precautions to prevent someone getting injured when they had a legal duty to do so.
Duty of Care in Premises Liability
What makes Missouri premises liability cases different from other personal injury claims is that the specific duty of care property owners owe their visitors depends on why those visitors are on the premises. There are three types of visitors under Missouri premises liability law:
- Invitees – An invitee is someone who has permission to be on the premises and is visiting the property for the owner’s commercial benefit. For example, customers in a store or patrons at a restaurant are invitees, assuming they have the owner’s permission to be there. For an invitee to recover against a property owner, the invitee must prove that the owner knew or by using ordinary care could have known of the hazard and failed to either remove, barricade, or warn of the danger.
- Licensees – A licensee is someone visiting a property for a non-commercial purpose who has permission to be there. Social guests at a home are a common example of licensees. Property owners must warn licensees of known hazards and have sufficient information to realize that persons would not discover the hazard or realize its risk.
- Trespassers – A trespasser is anyone visiting a property without the owner’s permission. Missouri law says property owners are generally not liable for any injuries to trespassers. The exceptions to this rule are intentional injuries to trespassers or cases where a child wanders onto the property and sustains an injury due to a hazard the property owner knew or should have known about.
How a Missouri Premises Liability Lawyer Can Help
Due to the varying duties of care owed to different types of visitors in Missouri, proving a premises liability case can be complicated. Working with a Missouri premises liability attorney is the best step you can take to protect your rights after an accident on someone else’s property. The team at Ryan R. Cox & Associates can investigate the incident to determine who’s liable for your injuries, gather evidence to establish liability and document your losses, handle settlement negotiations with the insurance companies, and protect your rights in court if necessary. Call us today or complete our contact form for a free consultation.