Pompano Beach Premises Liability Lawyer

Property owners in Florida owe a duty of reasonable care to the people they invite in. When that duty is ignored and someone is hurt, the law provides a remedy, but it puts more of the burden on the injured person than most people expect. Jacobson Injury Firm represents people hurt on unsafe property across Broward County.

Attorney Adam Jacobson handles every case personally. Contact us today for a free consultation, and see our broader Pompano Beach personal injury practice for related claims.

The Statute That Decides Most Florida Fall Cases

This statute controls the outcome of most premises claims in the state. Florida Statute 768.0755 governs falls caused by a transitory foreign substance in a business establishment, which covers spilled liquid, dropped produce, tracked-in rain, and similar hazards. Under the statute, the injured person must prove the business had actual or constructive knowledge of the condition and should have taken action.

Florida changed this in 2010. Before then, a business had to explain how the substance got there. The statute reversed that, and the injured person now carries the burden. This is the reason these cases are harder in Florida than in many states, and the reason evidence gathered in the first days matters so much.

The statute provides two routes to constructive knowledge, and a claim generally needs one of them.

• Time on the floor. The condition existed long enough that the business should have discovered it using ordinary care. Proving this usually means surveillance footage, inspection logs, or a witness who saw the spill earlier.
• Foreseeable regularity. The condition occurred with such regularity that it was foreseeable. A leaking cooler, a produce display that sheds, or an entrance that floods every time it rains can establish this pattern.

The statute does not eliminate a property owner’s ordinary common law duty of care, and it does not apply to every premises claim. A broken stair, inadequate lighting, or a failed handrail is a maintenance failure rather than a transitory substance, and the analysis differs.

Your Status on the Property Changes the Duty Owed

Florida sorts visitors into categories, and the category determines what the owner owed you. This is the first question in any premises case.

• Invitees are people on the property for the owner’s benefit, such as customers in a store or guests at a hotel. They receive the highest duty: the owner must maintain the property in reasonably safe condition, inspect for hazards, and warn of dangers not readily apparent.
• Licensees are social guests and others present with permission but not for the owner’s commercial benefit. The owner must warn of known dangers and avoid causing harm through wilful misconduct.
• Trespassers receive the least protection. Under Florida Statute 768.075, an owner generally owes only a duty to refrain from intentional harm, with limited exceptions including discovered trespassers and children drawn to attractive hazards such as unfenced pools.

Property owners routinely argue that a person exceeded the scope of their invitation, moving them into a lower category. Whether someone stepped into an employees-only area or stayed past closing can change the duty analysis entirely.

Negligent Security and the 2023 Apartment Rule

A property owner can be liable when foreseeable criminal activity harms a visitor and reasonable security was not provided. Inadequate lighting, broken gates and locks, and absent security in an area with a documented crime history all support these claims.

Florida changed the landscape here in March 2023. House Bill 837 created Florida Statute 768.0706, which gives the owner or principal operator of a multifamily residential property of five or more units a presumption against liability for criminal acts committed by third parties, provided the property substantially implements a defined list of security measures. Those measures include specified lighting for parking lots, walkways, and laundry rooms, one-inch deadbolts, peepholes, and locking devices, along with a crime prevention through environmental design assessment completed by a law enforcement agency or a designated practitioner and kept current, plus employee training.

Two points matter for an injured person. The presumption is rebuttable rather than absolute, so it changes the starting posture of the case rather than ending it. And it applies only where the property has actually implemented the measures and can document it, which many properties have not done. Establishing what a property did or failed to do, and whether its assessment is current, is now an early step in any negligent security claim.

Why Choose Jacobson Injury Firm for Your Pompano Beach Premises Claim?

Command of the Rules That Decide These Cases

Premises claims turn on knowledge and status rather than on the obvious question of whether a hazard existed. Florida’s modified comparative fault standard under Florida Statute 768.81 then bars recovery entirely once a claimant carries more than half the blame, and property owners lean heavily on the argument that the hazard was open and obvious. Claims arising in Pompano Beach proceed through the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit in Broward County.

Demonstrated Results for Injured Clients

The firm has recovered millions of dollars for injured clients. Our client reviews describe how the firm communicates through these cases.

No Attorney Fees Unless You Recover

Premises claims at the firm run on contingency. Nothing is owed at the outset, we advance case costs, and no recovery means no fee.

Key Components of a Pompano Beach Premises Liability Claim

Establishing Negligence

Negligence requires duty, breach, causation, and damages, and determining who is at fault can reach past the occupier to a property owner, a management company, a maintenance contractor, or a cleaning service. Commercial leases frequently allocate responsibility between landlord and tenant, and identifying which party controlled the area matters as much as proving the hazard existed.

Preserving Video and Inspection Records

This is the whole case in most fall claims. Surveillance footage showing how long a spill sat on the floor is the cleanest proof of constructive knowledge available, and most systems overwrite within days. Inspection logs, sweep sheets, and incident reports sit with the business and are not volunteered. A preservation letter sent early prevents the material from disappearing in the ordinary course. Physical evidence including the footwear you were wearing also matters, since the defense will raise it.

No PIP and No Injury Threshold Here

Worth stating plainly, because injured people often assume otherwise. Personal injury protection, the 14-day treatment rule, and the permanent injury threshold apply to motor vehicle claims. They do not apply to a fall on someone’s property. Your medical bills go through your health insurance or a letter of protection, and there is no statutory gate standing between you and pain and suffering damages. Prompt treatment still matters enormously for proving the injury, but it is not a coverage deadline.

Calculating Damages

Damages cover medical costs, future treatment, lost wages, diminished earning capacity, pain, and loss of life enjoyment. Broken bones, back injuries, and soft tissue injuries dominate these claims, and head trauma appears in a meaningful share of falls. Florida Statute 768.0427 also rewrote how medical damages are proven, requiring disclosure of letters of protection and changing what juries see about amounts billed against amounts paid.

Acting Within Two Years

Florida cut the negligence deadline from four years to two in March 2023 under Florida Statute 95.11. Our statute of limitations resource explains how the clock runs. Where the property belongs to a city, county, or state entity, Florida Statute 768.28 adds written pre-suit notice to the agency and the Department of Financial Services, plus a waiting period.

“Excellent service and results. Attorney Jacobson was professional, responsive, and truly cared about my case. They explained everything clearly and delivered great results.”

Isaac M.

Types of Premises Liability Claims We Handle

Slip and Fall

Wet floors, spills, freshly mopped surfaces without signage, and tracked-in rain in entryways. These are the claims governed directly by the constructive knowledge statute. Federal fall data shows how frequently these produce serious injury rather than embarrassment.

Trip and Fall

Uneven pavement, raised sidewalk slabs, torn carpet, unmarked steps, and extension cords across walkways. Trip and fall claims often turn on maintenance history rather than on a transitory substance, so a different evidentiary path applies.

Inadequate Maintenance and Structural Failure

Collapsed railings, failing stairs, broken elevators, and deteriorating balconies. Workplace walking and working surface standards often inform what reasonable maintenance looks like even outside an employment setting.

Negligent Security

Assaults, robberies, and shootings in parking garages, apartment complexes, hotels, and nightlife venues where security was absent or inadequate and the crime was foreseeable. The 2023 apartment rule described above applies to multifamily properties.

Swimming Pool and Drowning Incidents

Unfenced pools, missing safety equipment, absent supervision, and defective drains. Florida’s residential pool safety requirements and the attractive nuisance doctrine both come into play, particularly where children are involved.

Inadequate Lighting

Poorly lit stairwells, parking structures, and walkways cause falls and enable crime. Lighting is one of the few hazards with objective measurable standards.

Falling Objects and Dog Bites

Merchandise falling from height in warehouse-format stores causes head and shoulder injuries. Animal attacks on property are governed separately by Florida’s strict liability rule, covered on our dog bite page.

Where a fall or an assault produces life-altering harm, our catastrophic injury practice applies, and where it proves fatal our wrongful death practice does. We also handle construction accidents and pedestrian claims. See all practice areas.

Where Premises Claims Arise in Pompano Beach

The mix of property types here shapes the claims. Retail plazas along Federal Highway and Atlantic Boulevard, the concentration of shopping around Pompano Citi Centre, and the grocery and big-box stores on Copans Road and Sample Road produce the bulk of fall claims. Beachfront hotels and short-term rentals along A1A bring visitor injuries, pool incidents, and balcony failures. The apartment and condominium stock across the city drives negligent security and common-area maintenance claims, and older buildings tend to generate stairwell and railing failures. Incidents in the city are typically handled by the Broward Sheriff’s Office, the City of Pompano Beach maintains public property and sidewalks, and Broward County holds responsibility for county facilities, each bringing the pre-suit notice requirements described above.

What to Do After an Injury on Someone’s Property

• Report the incident to a manager before you leave and ask for a written incident report. A fall that goes unreported becomes a fall the business can say never happened.
• Photograph the hazard immediately, from several angles and including surrounding context. Spills get mopped and hazards get repaired within minutes of a fall, and evidence that vanishes cannot be recreated.
• Note every camera you can see and tell your lawyer about them the same week, because footage is routinely overwritten within days.
• Get names and phone numbers for witnesses and for the employee who responded.
• Keep the shoes and clothing you were wearing, unwashed. The defense will raise footwear, and having the actual pair answers the argument.
• Seek medical attention promptly and follow the treatment plan without gaps, since gaps become causation arguments later in the case timeline. Decline a recorded statement to the property’s insurer until you have spoken with a lawyer, and see our guide to insurance companies for why.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I automatically have a claim if I fell in a store?

No, and this surprises people. Florida requires you to prove the business knew or should have known about the hazard. You must show either that the condition existed long enough that reasonable inspection would have found it, or that it occurred regularly enough to be foreseeable. The fall itself is not enough.

What is constructive knowledge?

It means the business should have known about the hazard even if nobody actually saw it. Proving it usually requires surveillance footage showing how long a spill sat there, inspection logs showing when the area was last checked, or evidence that the same problem recurs. This is why acting quickly matters.

Does PIP cover a slip and fall in Florida?

No. Personal injury protection, the 14-day treatment deadline, and the permanent injury threshold apply to motor vehicle claims only. A premises claim runs through health insurance or a letter of protection, and no statutory threshold stands between you and pain and suffering damages.

How long do I have to file a premises liability claim?

Two years from the date of injury for most negligence claims, shortened from four years in March 2023. If the property belongs to a city, county, or state entity, written pre-suit notice and a waiting period apply, so those claims need attention immediately.

What if the hazard was obvious?

The property owner will argue exactly that, and it goes to comparative fault rather than ending the claim. Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of responsibility, and more than 50 percent bars it entirely. An owner still has a duty to maintain the property, and an obvious hazard that should have been repaired remains a breach of that duty.

Can I sue an apartment complex after being assaulted there?

Possibly, but Florida changed these claims in 2023. A multifamily property of five or more units that substantially implements a defined list of security measures, keeps a current crime prevention assessment, and trains its employees receives a presumption against liability for third-party criminal acts. The presumption is rebuttable, and many properties have not actually met the requirements, so the first step is establishing what the property did.

Does my legal status on the property matter?

Considerably. A customer in a store is an invitee and receives the highest duty of care, including inspection for hazards. A social guest is a licensee and is owed warning of known dangers. A trespasser receives the least protection, with exceptions for discovered trespassers and for children drawn to hazards such as unfenced pools.

What if I was injured on government property?

You can bring a claim, but the rules are stricter. Florida requires written pre-suit notice to the agency and to the Department of Financial Services, along with a mandatory waiting period before suit. Missing that step bars the claim regardless of how clear the negligence was.

How much is my premises liability case worth?

Value depends on the severity and permanence of your injuries, medical costs, lost income, the strength of the knowledge evidence, and your share of fault. Cases with clear surveillance footage settle very differently from cases resting on testimony alone, which is another reason early evidence work matters.

How much does a premises liability lawyer cost?

Our firm works on a contingency fee, so nothing is owed at the outset and the fee comes as a percentage of any recovery. We advance case costs. If there is no recovery, no attorney fee is owed, and the consultation is free.

Speak With a Pompano Beach Premises Liability Lawyer

Surveillance footage is overwritten within days and hazards are repaired within minutes, which means the proof these cases require has a short life. Reaching out early costs nothing and preserves evidence that otherwise disappears. Consultations are free and you pay nothing unless we recover for you. Call (561) 567-7163 or send us a message. The firm also serves Delray Beach, Boynton Beach, and West Palm Beach, with the full list on our areas we serve page and further reading in our personal injury resources and blog.