Negligence laws in Nevada include community and industry standards that property owners and entrants must live up to, punishing owners who fail to keep their property free of unreasonable dangers. These laws almost always come into play when an entrant is injured on someone else’s property and wishes to sue for damages, such as medical expenses and lost wages.
In such cases, the injured party must show that the owner neglected the upkeep of its property. For example, the owner may have had stairs installed on the property that are steeper or narrower than the local safety guidelines recommend, or he or she may have failed to put up warning signs around a wet floor. At the same time, it must be proven that the victim used the property in a reasonable way, not engaging in reckless actions.
These types of lawsuits tend not to have a high success rate because there must be hard evidence that the owner’s negligence, and nothing else, led directly to the unsafe conditions. In many cases, carelessness rather than negligence is behind the accident, and thus property owners cannot really be charged. To avoid lawsuits, though, property owners should make sure to comply with building codes and public safety laws.
Keeping all this in mind, victims of what they believe to be owner negligence will want to hire a lawyer who evaluates premises liability claims. Such lawyers usually have an in-house team of investigators who can search for security footage and other data to support the claim. Victims themselves should file an incident report immediately after they’re injured, if possible, as this could be used to bolster the claim. The lawyer can then estimate a fair settlement and negotiate for it with the insurance companies, litigating if necessary.
