Slips, Trips And Falls: Why It’s Important to Get Ahead of An Incident

Slips, trips and falls are a leading cause of injuries and fatalities in the United States. As a result, the cost of these mostly avoidable tragedies results in significant personal and financial loss.

To best manage claims, it is essential to understand why slip, trip and fall incidents occur, and then identify how to help property owners proactively address them in an attempt to prevent the incident and how to properly manage a claim when they do happen.

The Facts

More than 8 million fall injuries are reported each year to emergency rooms, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. The National Safety Council noted that 15,000 of those injuries in 2024 resulted in death. A significant percentage of these falls were due to slip and fall incidents. The human impact cost of these incidents is incalculable, and the financial costs to resolve a slip, trip or fall incident can be significant, whether in the claims or litigation phase. The CDC WISQARS database indicates the combined economic cost of unintentional falls to be in excess of $195 billion.

Industry Trends

There is a rapidly growing pursuit of litigating personal injury (PI) claims, including slips, trips and falls. Case volume in federal courts has surged by 30%. Since most claims are performed on a contingency basis, and roughly 95% of PI claims are settled before trial, the costs of pursuing litigation are comparatively minimal, allowing pursuit of claims by an increasing number of litigation attorneys.

On top of this, there are nuclear verdicts, when juries award $10 million or more. These awards are often considered punitive and in excess of the resulting actual damages. Nuclear verdicts are on the rise, according to research from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Why Do Incidents Occur?

Slips, trips and falls occur for a multitude of reasons: lack of knowledge, lack of periodic inspection, lack of maintenance or maintenance records. Proactively addressing these matters will assist in reducing these claims, and at the very least show a good-faith effort to address potential issues.

Practical example: Unfortunately, if you allow the deferred maintenance of a ¾-inch height difference between two sidewalk flags, your first notice that this is an issue may be a letter or legal document stating that the plaintiff was walking on the sidewalk in front of your property, tripped, sustained injuries and is requesting compensation.

Along the same vein: Did you know that some municipal codes require businesses to keep sidewalks clean daily?

Disconcerting is that not all states require that litigation funding arrangements be disclosed. This means the jury does not always know that investors undertook a calculated risk and funded the plaintiff’s side of the litigation. This influences attorneys to aim for larger awards in a slip, trip and fall claim at trial in the hopes of obtaining a nuclear verdict to satisfy the investor.

What’s the Proactive Solution?

Being proactive means creating a risk assessment plan and following up on it. Risk assessment plans should include frequency of inspections, types of inspections, visual cues, signage, CCTV, lighting and a written remediation plan to identify appropriate actions to be taken when specific hazards are observed. Also, it’s advisable to keep clear and detailed maintenance records to demonstrate due diligence, which may mitigate against the charge of negligence, resulting in a less likely punitive verdict.

Practical example: A property owner should have a checklist that an employee marks off daily after picking up trash in the parking lot. The manager should then review these daily checklists and walk the property to observe the reported conditions and create a remediation plan.

Daily checklists can include easier tasks like removing a temporary object in a pathway or adding signage to alert pedestrians of an issue in the walkway until a remediation plan can be created and enacted. If a temporary spill is observed, signage should be placed immediately, and the floor properly cleaned and dried. But when the slip or trip hazard is more permanent, like a change in floor tile or an elevation difference between sidewalk flags, it should be immediately marked with visual cues, and a clear remediation plan developed. These records will assist owners when there is a slip, trip or fall on their property.

What’s the Responsive Solution?

Some claims are filed promptly. Others are filed years later. An adjuster’s priority is to collect the evidence, which depends upon how recent the event occurred. Preserving the evidence should include but not be limited to downloading the CCTV footage, collecting the incident report, witness statements and medical reports, securing (not altering/modifying) the area of the incident, and collecting depositions and other expert reports. The key is to preserve the site by blocking off the area, not cleaning and not repairing the area until a professional assessment can be completed. With the passage of time, evidence collection becomes more challenging.

Once a claim for damages is filed and received, it should immediately be referred to counsel. Counsel should then retain an expert to evaluate the claim and associated files, who should then provide a verbal report to counsel. Counsel can then decide on the best course of action. This will ensure that attorney-client work product and client privilege is protected.

What Is Third-Party Funding And Why Is It Important?

“What You Need to Know About Third-Party Litigation Funding” from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce states that “entities … advance money to plaintiffs or law firms to cover litigation or other costs on a nonrecourse basis contingent on the outcome of the case.” Essentially, outside investors provide money to attorneys to pursue slip, trip and fall claims, with a portion of the proceeds to be remitted back to the investors.

If you combine a nuclear verdict with a jury verdict of $10 million or more with litigation funding, winning one of these cases can lead to a substantial return on investment, even if a majority of the claims are denied.

Being proactive with a risk assessment plan is the best option, and a qualified workplace compliance and safety expert should be retained to develop such a plan. This will reduce the likelihood of a claim being filed. And when a claim is filed, businesses are advised to proactively manage it by retaining an expert immediately. As an adjuster, being responsive means preserving available evidence no matter when the incident occurred. While it is impossible to eliminate slips, trips and falls, these steps will mitigate risk, help manage the claim and provide a reasonable defense should one occur.

Gilewicz is vice president – Specialty Services, EFI Global Inc. He has experience in forensic engineering, premises liability investigations and risk management consulting. He specializes in the investigation and analysis of slip, trip, and fall incidents, building code compliance, human factors considerations and loss causation.

Michele A. Bogdon, principal engineer, EFI Global Inc. Bogdon has more than 24 years of forensic engineering experience and is licensed as a professional engineer in 17 states.