The surfaces are familiar: liquid from a leaking cooler in a grocery store, produce dropped in the aisle, a freshly mopped floor with no cone in sight, rain and snow tracked across a tile entryway with no mat, ice in a parking lot or on a walkway that was never salted, and grease on a restaurant kitchen floor or the entryway where staff walk it out. Big-box retailers, grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants, apartment buildings, and hospitals all generate these cases. A slip is different from a trip, which involves a fixed hazard such as a raised sidewalk or an unmarked step; those cases are covered on our Trip and Fall page, and the law that applies to both is explained on our Premises Liability page.
Under Indiana law, following the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 343, we must show the owner knew or should have known about the hazard, should have expected you would not discover it, and failed to fix it or warn you. In a slip case the owner almost always claims it had no idea the spill was there. That is why the central question is constructive notice: how long the hazard existed before you fell. A puddle with cart tracks running through it, a spill that has dried at the edges, or ice that formed hours earlier all tell a story. Surveillance video, sweep logs, inspection schedules, and employee statements show whether the owner was checking the floor the way a reasonable business would, and much of that evidence is deleted on a schedule unless it is requested promptly.
The owner’s insurer will say you should have been watching where you were walking, that your footwear was the problem, or that a warning cone was out and you ignored it. We answer each one with evidence. A cone placed after the fall, or a cone so far from the hazard that nobody would connect the two, is not a warning. Footwear is examined and photographed. We test or retain experts to test the slip resistance of the flooring itself, because a surface that fails the applicable ASTM standard when wet is a hazard the owner chose to install. Indiana’s comparative fault rule still allows recovery unless you were more than 50 percent at fault, with the award reduced by your share.
Northwest Indiana and Michiana winters generate a large share of our slip cases. Indiana does not excuse a property owner simply because the weather was bad; the question is whether the owner acted reasonably in light of it. A store that opens its doors before the lot is treated, an apartment complex whose walkways refreeze every night, or a snow-removal contractor that skipped a visit can each be responsible. We obtain snow-removal contracts, salting logs, and hourly weather data to establish what the owner knew and when it should have acted. We handle these cases from our Merrillville and South Bend offices and take them anywhere in Indiana, and when the case resolves, you get the check and we handle the bills.
In Indiana, most personal injury claims must be filed within two years of the date of injury (Ind. Code § 34-11-2-4). Claims against a city, county, or state agency require a formal tort claim notice much sooner, in some cases within 180 days. Waiting costs leverage, and in some cases it costs the claim entirely.
We represent injured people everywhere in Indiana. Most of an injury case happens by phone, email, and video, so you do not need to live near one of our offices to work with us.
Injury cases are handled on a contingency fee: no retainer, no hourly bill, and no attorney fee unless we recover money for you. The percentage is set in a written agreement before we start and depends on the stage at which the case resolves. How contingency fees work, in plain English.
A decorated U.S. Army veteran who set his sights on the law at age eight, James has represented hundreds of injured clients with a modern, client-first style and a refusal to let insurance companies run out the clock.
Possibly. Reporting helps, but it is not required. Contact us quickly so we can request video and incident records before they are purged.
That is the standard comparative fault defense. Indiana still allows recovery unless you were more than 50 percent at fault, and the owner’s failure to fix or warn about a hazard often outweighs that argument.
Through surveillance video, sweep logs, inspection schedules, employee statements, and the physical condition of the hazard itself. We send a preservation demand immediately so that evidence is not overwritten.
Nothing up front. We work on a contingency fee, and you won’t owe us a fee unless we recover for you.
Five minutes on the phone and you will know where you stand. You will not owe us a fee unless we recover money for you, and the bills get handled before the check does.