New Jersey Accident and Injury Law Blog : New Jersey Injury Lawyer & Attorney : The Grossman Law Firm : Serving Monmouth County, Bergen County

Slip and fall injuries are expected to increase in number as the baby boomer generation ages. That’s because the elderly are more at risk of being injured in slip and fall accidents. That, and other facts and solutions are contained in a new white paper by insurer CNA.

According to the report, annually fall accidents kill more than 16,000 people in the country. Besides these, more than one million people are injured every year. Most of these accidents are caused because of factors like poor walking surface, lack of visibility, poor accessibility, and weak hand rails and guard rails.

According to the National Floor Institute, the number of seniors in the country between 2005 and 2020 is expected to increase from 35 million to 77 million. Not only are these people more likely to slip and fall injuring themselves, but the cost of treating these injuries is higher for an elderly person than for someone younger.  As Bergen County premises liability attorneys frequently see, the kinds of fall injuries that elderly people face are also the number one reason they have to be hospitalized.

The insurer has a wealth of tips for owners of commercial properties to reduce their claims figures by making premises safer. Suggestions include installation of high traction flooring material that is resistant to slipping. If an existing floor increases the risk of slipping, CNA suggests using surface treatments, replacement of the floor, and carpeting to reduce the risk. The National Floor Safety Institute has a range of recommended flooring materials that can reduce slipping. Besides, premises should be well lit, and stairways should be especially safe to use. Staff must be trained in cleanup of spills as soon as they occur.

According to 2000 statistics, most of the time, premises injury lawsuits are won by plaintiffs. Besides, the average compensation awarded to plaintiffs has also risen steadily.

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A New Jersey woman, who fell while trying to scale the wall of a Mercer cemetery and successfully sued the city of Trenton, may end up not keeping her $1.6 million premises injury award after all.

In 2001, Suzanne Ogborne was strolling through the Mercer cemetery, when an employee locked the gates at 4.30 pm – the cemetery's closing hours - leaving Ogborne inside. After trying in vain to find another open route out of the cemetery, Ogborne finally scaled the wall, and jumped over and down to the other side. The fall left her with a broken tibia. She had to undergo surgery, and was forced to remain away from work for three months. She also suffered a pulmonary embolism, a disorder characterized by blockage of a lung artery and caused by a blood clot traveling from the leg, as a result of her injuries and the treatment. The condition can lead to a loss of oxygen in the blood, and carries the risk of organ damage because of this loss of oxygen. 

Ogborne sued the city of Trenton, claiming that her injuries were the result of negligence because the guard who locked the gates should have checked to make sure that nobody was in, before he shut the gates. Ogborne won the suit, and was awarded $1.6 million. Now, the New Jersey Supreme Court has ordered a retrial in the matter, saying that the case should have been held to a "palpably unreasonable" standard of liability, and not the "ordinary negligence" standard under which she had been awarded $1.6 million. The justices ruled that the dangerous condition had been brought about by a combination of two factors - Ogborne's presence in the park, and the guard's locking of the gates.   The employee's act of locking the gates in itself did not constitute a dangerous condition. The court also ruled that a new jury should consider Ogborne's negligence comparative to the negligence of the city in the incident. 

Premises Injury Lawyer

It's not always easy to pursue claims against government bodies because of governmental immunity. Private citizens are often faced with a solid block of wall when they try to come up against a government entity. Litigating claims when you have been injured on another's property, private or government, involves hiring an experienced Monmouth and Bergen  County premises injury attorney to file a claim for injuries sustained. If you have been injured on another's property – through a slip and fall accident, on an elevator or stairways etc. – contact a Monmouth and Bergen County premises injury lawyer at my firm for a free evaluation of your case.

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A law enacted after the death of the granddaughter of a former Secretary of State went into force a few weeks ago, but indications are that not everyone is rushing out to get their pools fitted with the new safer drain covers yet.

The Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act was signed by President Bush in 2007, and came into force in December of 2008. The act was named in memory of Virginia Baker, granddaughter of former Secretary of State James Baker who drowned after being sucked down and pinned against a drain cover in a hot tub in the family yard. It was a horrific example of how these drain covers that work silently to filter the water and keep the pool clean, can actually suck a child or even an adult down with staggering force. Adults have been sucked down by the drain covers, unable to pry themselves loose, and several reports of children who have been mutilated and disemboweled after sitting on an open drain cover have emerged over the years. 2007 was also the year another little girl, six-year old Abigail Taylor of Omaha lost part of her intestinal tract in a horrific case of disembowelment by a pool drain cover. She died in 2008, and her parents sued the golf club where the accident occurred.

Barely a month after the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act came into force, there continue to be hundreds of thousands of pools, hot tubs and spas around the county that are still fitted with the older, unsafe drain covers. The older covers were flat, while the newer ones come domed and with smaller openings that make it harder for fingers, hair and bits of clothing to become snagged. The cost of installing these covers can range from $1,000 to $10,000, and they are completely out of stock in many parts of the country. Part of the problem seems to be that the new safer drain covers were only produced and tested after the Act was signed in 2007, and manufacturers are facing a massive backlog of orders since the law came into force in December.

According to the Wall Street Journal, close to 80 percent of pools and spas in the country continue to be equipped with the older flat covers. That's bound to be alarming to parents whose children regularly use public pools, and even more alarming to pool owners who face the risk of negligence and premises liability lawsuits in case of an accident in their pool.  In some cases, pool owners are doing the smartest thing to do under the circumstances - shutting down their facilities till they can have the new drain covers delivered and installed, to avoid the possibility of hearing from a premises liability lawyer after an unfortunate event.

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