Birmingham's stores, garages, and apartment complexes see thousands of slip, trip, and fall injuries each year — and property owners' insurers move fast to shift blame to the victim.
A spilled drink left unmopped on the tile at a Riverchase Galleria food court. A cracked curb in a Five Points South parking lot that catches a heel after dark. A missing handrail on the back stairs of a Southside apartment. An unlit stairwell in a downtown office tower off 20th Street. Any of these can put you in UAB Hospital with a broken hip, a concussion, or worse — and within hours, the property's risk adjuster is already building a file to say you weren't watching where you were going.
Premises liability claims are not straightforward negligence cases.
Alabama law treats visitors differently depending on whether you were an invitee (a customer or tenant's guest), a licensee (a social guest), or a trespasser — and each status carries a different duty of care for the property owner. Winning your case means proving the owner knew, or should have known, about the hazard and failed to fix it or warn you. That requires fast action: surveillance video from the store, maintenance logs, prior incident reports at that same Jefferson County location, and witness statements before memories fade.
Alabama law gives injured visitors two years — and zero margin for shared fault.
Under Ala. Code § 6-2-38, you generally have two years from the date of injury to file a premises liability lawsuit. Alabama is also one of only four states that still follow pure contributory negligence: if the defense convinces a Jefferson County jury that you were even 1% at fault for not seeing the hazard, you recover nothing. Adjusters know this and use it — early recorded statements and leading questions are designed to pin a sliver of fault on you.
How our Birmingham attorneys build your premises liability case.
Our team acts quickly to lock down evidence before the property is cleaned up or video is overwritten. We will:
- Send spoliation letters the same day to preserve surveillance footage, incident reports, and maintenance logs at the Birmingham property.
- Pull prior complaints and code violations filed with the City of Birmingham or Jefferson County to show a pattern of neglect.
- Identify every liable party — property owner, property manager, cleaning contractor, or security company — that may carry coverage for your injuries.
- Retain engineers or safety experts to document cracked pavement, code-violating stairs, inadequate lighting, or negligent security conditions.
- Build the case from day one to withstand Alabama's contributory-negligence defense, anticipating every argument the property's insurer will make.
We pursue the full range of damages Alabama law allows — medical bills, future care, lost wages, diminished earning capacity, and pain and suffering — so you can focus on healing while we focus on the case.
