Hotel and Resort Accidents

When you go to a hotel or resort, you expect to relax in a safe environment. Unfortunately, accidents do happen in these settings. They may include slip and falls, drownings, electrocutions, assaults due to poor lighting or security, broken sporting equipment, escalator or elevator injuries, and construction site accidents. If you are injured in a hotel or resort accident, you may want to explore your legal options. The experienced Los Angeles premises liability lawyers at Sharifi Firm may be able to help you pursue compensation.

Owners and operators of hotels and resorts must use reasonable care and keep their properties in a reasonably safe condition. This includes a responsibility to inspect for unsafe conditions and conduct repairs or give adequate warnings about any hazards. In California, a jury deciding whether a particular defendant used reasonable care may consider factors such as where the property was located, the likelihood that somebody would come onto the property in the same way as the plaintiff, the likelihood of harm and how serious it is, whether the defendant knew or should have known about the dangerous condition, the difficulty of protecting against the risk of that harm, and the defendant's degree of control over the dangerous condition.

A hotel or resort owner may be legally responsible for dangerous conditions about which it either knew or should have known. Hotels and resorts also may be held liable for employees' actions when employees are acting within the course and scope of employment. If a maintenance worker creates a dangerous condition that causes a hotel or resort accident, such as by failing to put up orange hazard cones around an area where the worker is cleaning the floor, the hotel is presumed to have notice of the condition.

Hotels and resorts may be liable for a third-party criminal attack if there have been prior similar incidents that made the criminal attack foreseeable. The hotel's duty is determined by balancing foreseeability against how burdensome it would be to take proper security measures. For example, if you were mugged in the resort parking structure, and there were five prior muggings there, the hotel may have had a responsibility to retain a security guard.

If you can establish your premises liability claim, you may be able to recover general (noneconomic) and special (economic) damages. General damages may include pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of activities, and loss of consortium. Economic damages may include lost income, medical bills, household services, out-of-pocket expenses, and other tangible losses. For example, if you are seriously injured while on vacation in another state, you may not be able to travel back to your home for a period of time even if the hospital discharges you. This means you may have to take time off work and secure another place to live. This is an economic loss that may be compensable.

Liability for hotel and resort accidents can be challenging to establish. It is important to retain an experienced Los Angeles attorney right away so that you can be sure to preserve any evidence that may be related to the dangerous condition. For example, if there is video surveillance footage, this can be a critical component of your case, but not all hotels preserve these videos for any length of time. At Sharifi Firm, our slip and fall lawyers also represent injured individuals in San Bernardino, Fontana, Rancho Cucamonga, Riverside, Victorville, and Temecula, as well as other Southern California cities. Contact us at (866) 422-7222 or via our online form for a free, no-obligation consultation.