Wettermark Keith has a Dothan office on West Main Street and has recovered compensation in more than 50,000 personal injury cases.
If you or a loved one was hurt on someone else's property anywhere in the Wiregrass – from downtown Dothan to Rehobeth, Kinsey to Cowarts, Taylor to Ashford, or out along the Ross Clark Circle – our attorneys are ready to hear your story. Call us today or complete the form to start your free case review.
Dothan's stores, parking lots, 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 the Wiregrass Commons Mall food court. A cracked curb in a Ross Clark Circle parking lot that catches a heel after dark. A missing handrail on the back stairs of a Westgate apartment. An unlit stairwell in a downtown office off North Foster Street. Any of these can put you in Southeast Health or Flowers 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 Houston County location, and witness statements before memories fade.
Alabama law puts injured visitors in one of the country's harshest legal landscapes.
The statute of limitations for most premises liability claims is two years from the date of injury under Ala. Code § 6-2-38. More dangerously, Alabama is one of only a handful of states that still enforces pure contributory negligence — if a Houston County jury finds you even 1% at fault for not seeing the hazard, you recover nothing. Adjusters know this rule, and they routinely call injured visitors within days hoping for a recorded statement that pins any sliver of blame on you before you've talked to a lawyer.
How our Dothan 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 Dothan property.
- Pull prior complaints and code violations filed with the City of Dothan or Houston 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.
- File and, if necessary, litigate in the Houston County Circuit Court — building a case designed to beat Alabama's 1% contributory-negligence trap.
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.
