I generally watch where I'm walking, particularly on highly inclined streets, and would recognize a soapy water covered slope and know that it might be slippery.
Are you saying they should have put up a sign to advise you that the street was wet and might be slippery? And it was their negligence that caused your fall, not your negligence to properly observe your surroundings?
I generally watch where I'm walking, particularly on highly inclined streets, and would recognize a soapy water covered slope and know that it might be slippery.
Are you saying they should have put up a sign to advise you that the street was wet and might be slippery? And it was their negligence that caused your fall, not your negligence to properly observe your surroundings?
Dumping water on a street in freezing weather without a sign is negligent. Would we be having this conversation if a kid slipped and fell in the same place? If you are making a place hazardous, it's generally on you to provide warning and failing to do so is negligent.
Dumping water in the middle of a street in freezing weather is different than your first post in which in near freezing weather, soapy water ran out into the street due to floor cleaning. Regardless, I can't subscribe to that line of thinking in either instance.
Every normal person is capable of assessing their environment and plotting a safe course through it. If you tripped over a curb, it wouldn't be the person that put the curb there's fault. You can't expect someone else to make your world safe for you.
Your line of thinking is how a thief can sue when he gets injured breaking into your house -- you failed to make it safe for him [1][2]
Parents are responsible for the safety of their children, not random shop owners.
IANAL but I believe the legal standard that would be applied is reasonableness. Is it reasonable for a person, traversing a highly-inclined street, in freezing weather, to expect the street not to contain any frozen patches of water.
My stance is known -- I'm responsible for my and my children's safety, but I concede that your line of reason seems to be prevalent in society today.
There is a line of reasonableness that could be cross in which I would blame the other party. Ice on a street in freezing weather could be expected. A land mine would not be expected. Nor would a chunk of ice falling from an airplane. Those are situations in which I could reasonably find fault with another party.
Every normal person is capable of assessing their environment
I've walked up and down that sidewalk hundreds of times, in dry, wet, and cold conditions. I have never thought twice of walking down it in the rain.
From visual inspection, the water was not obviously soapy. All it looked like was a wet patch of sidewalk. It looked just fine to step on.
IANAL but I believe the legal standard that would be applied is reasonableness. Is it reasonable for a person, traversing a highly-inclined street, in freezing weather, to expect the street not to contain any frozen patches of water.
It wasn't an ice slick, it hasn't rained or snowed in the past week, so the street was otherwise bone-dry. There was no indication that the situation was dangerous. I've never seen anyone else, before, or since, be stupid enough to dump a bunch of soap on that sidewalk, either, so its not exactly a common hazard.
It's not that bloody hard to run your business without creating a hazard to the public. I don't care if your revenue is a million, or a billion dollars a year. Get it right, and don't hurt people.
It's not that bloody hard to run your business without creating a hazard to the public. I don't care if your revenue is a million, or a billion dollars a year. Get it right, and don't hurt people.
You mean make everything near you as safe as humanely possible so that people don't hurt themselves on it. Create so many rules and policies that it takes 3 days and 50 pages of documentation(in case you get sued anyways) to clean up a spill on isle 6.
What kind of sidewalk becomes slippery with soapy water? Most sidewalks are concrete and would not be slippery unless a very viscous substance were poured on them, and even then not for a long time. Sounds like maybe a defect in the finish of the sidewalk. The entity that installed a sidewalk with a surface that might become slippery, on a highly inclined grade, appears to be negligent as well. That's why I assumed ice, as it's the only thing that made sense.
Some people just can't accept that when bad things happen it isn't always someone else's fault.
But I know that a good portion of people hold your point of view, including my 12-year-old who is never at fault for anything. I pass no judgement on you and will just agree to disagree.
Comments
I generally watch where I'm walking, particularly on highly inclined streets, and would recognize a soapy water covered slope and know that it might be slippery.
Are you saying they should have put up a sign to advise you that the street was wet and might be slippery? And it was their negligence that caused your fall, not your negligence to properly observe your surroundings?
Dumping water on a street in freezing weather without a sign is negligent. Would we be having this conversation if a kid slipped and fell in the same place? If you are making a place hazardous, it's generally on you to provide warning and failing to do so is negligent.
Dumping water in the middle of a street in freezing weather is different than your first post in which in near freezing weather, soapy water ran out into the street due to floor cleaning. Regardless, I can't subscribe to that line of thinking in either instance.
Every normal person is capable of assessing their environment and plotting a safe course through it. If you tripped over a curb, it wouldn't be the person that put the curb there's fault. You can't expect someone else to make your world safe for you. Your line of thinking is how a thief can sue when he gets injured breaking into your house -- you failed to make it safe for him [1][2]
Parents are responsible for the safety of their children, not random shop owners.
IANAL but I believe the legal standard that would be applied is reasonableness. Is it reasonable for a person, traversing a highly-inclined street, in freezing weather, to expect the street not to contain any frozen patches of water.
My stance is known -- I'm responsible for my and my children's safety, but I concede that your line of reason seems to be prevalent in society today.
There is a line of reasonableness that could be cross in which I would blame the other party. Ice on a street in freezing weather could be expected. A land mine would not be expected. Nor would a chunk of ice falling from an airplane. Those are situations in which I could reasonably find fault with another party.
[1] http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1985-11-17/news/03403900...
[2] https://www.overlawyered.com/2006/09/the-burglar-and-the-sky...
I've walked up and down that sidewalk hundreds of times, in dry, wet, and cold conditions. I have never thought twice of walking down it in the rain.
From visual inspection, the water was not obviously soapy. All it looked like was a wet patch of sidewalk. It looked just fine to step on.
It wasn't an ice slick, it hasn't rained or snowed in the past week, so the street was otherwise bone-dry. There was no indication that the situation was dangerous. I've never seen anyone else, before, or since, be stupid enough to dump a bunch of soap on that sidewalk, either, so its not exactly a common hazard.
It's not that bloody hard to run your business without creating a hazard to the public. I don't care if your revenue is a million, or a billion dollars a year. Get it right, and don't hurt people.
You mean make everything near you as safe as humanely possible so that people don't hurt themselves on it. Create so many rules and policies that it takes 3 days and 50 pages of documentation(in case you get sued anyways) to clean up a spill on isle 6.
What kind of sidewalk becomes slippery with soapy water? Most sidewalks are concrete and would not be slippery unless a very viscous substance were poured on them, and even then not for a long time. Sounds like maybe a defect in the finish of the sidewalk. The entity that installed a sidewalk with a surface that might become slippery, on a highly inclined grade, appears to be negligent as well. That's why I assumed ice, as it's the only thing that made sense.
Some people just can't accept that when bad things happen it isn't always someone else's fault.
But I know that a good portion of people hold your point of view, including my 12-year-old who is never at fault for anything. I pass no judgement on you and will just agree to disagree.