Premises Liability and Accidents in Abandoned Places of Business

There is a lot more to premises liability law than just simple cases where a customer slips and falls at a place of business during business hours.  Whether the business owner is legally responsible depends on where the injured person was and why the person was there.  Business owners have the highest level of responsibility for accidents that take place in areas open to the public, where the injured person was a customer, known in legal terms as a business invitee.  The standards for preventing accidental injury are lower, but the property owner still bears some responsibility, if the injured person went to the place of business to make money for someone other than the business owner; in this case, the injured person is known as a licensee.  The responsibilities of business owners to protect licensees from accidental injury are similar to the responsibilities of homeowners to protect social guests who visit them in their houses.  Trespassers cannot sue for premises liability unless the property owner or someone acting on the property owner’s behalf injured the trespasser intentionally.  If you have been injured under unusual circumstances at a place of business, contact a Fort Lauderdale premises liability lawyer.

Five Years Later, Broward Shopping Center Is Still Picking Up the Pieces After Gas Leak Explosion at Empty Restaurant

In the summer of 2019, an explosion at the Market shopping center on University Drive in Broward County injured 20 people and sent debris flying a long distance away from the site of the explosion.  Investigators eventually determined that the cause of the explosion was a gas leak in a pizza restaurant that had gone out of business several months earlier.  When the restaurant closed permanently, all of the gas valves that supply the shopping center were shut off except for one, which eventually caused the explosion.  Witnesses said that the only reason no one was killed was that the restaurant next to the empty pizza restaurant was temporarily closed for the holiday weekend.

Since the pizza restaurant was defunct, who was responsible for the accident?  Some of the responsibility belonged to the commercial landlord that operated the shopping center and should have inspected the gas valves at the empty restaurant whenever it inspected the gas valves at other locations at the shopping center.  It seems even more surprising that the landlord did not inspect the empty restaurant more carefully when one considers how important it is for landlords to seek out new tenants to fill vacant commercial spaces quickly.  The gas company may also have borne responsibility, since it was its job to close all the gas valves after the pizza restaurant stopped operating.

Set Up a Consultation Today

A personal injury lawyer can help you if you suffered a serious injury due to an accident at a shopping center, even if the root cause of the accident happened at a store other than the one where you were shopping.  Contact Boone & Davis in Fort Lauderdale, Florida or call 954-566-919 to explore your potential recovery options today.

Source:

cbsnews.com/miami/news/witnesses-recall-plantation-shopping-plaza-explosion-5-years-later/