Constructive Knowledge in a Premises Liability Case
Can you know something without actually knowing it? That sounds like a riddle. But in law, it actually describes the concept of constructive knowledge. The idea of constructive knowledge can be a powerful force, in allowing you to hold a property owner liable for dangerous conditions on property that cause injury to you.
What is Constructive Knowledge?
Constructive knowledge generally means that the law assumes a property owner knew something, because it could have and should have known it, even though the property owner may not have actually known about it.
For example, imagine that there is an ice cream spill in the middle of a store. That ice cream spill sits there for 30 minutes or an hour or two hours. Legitimately, the property owner never saw that ice cream, and had no idea that it was there.
But was there enough time for the property owner to see it, had the property owner acted diligently—for example inspected its floors on a regular, routine basis? The answer is likely yes, and thus we assume the property owner knew of it. The law doesn’t allow property owners to remain purposely, blissfully ignorant of a dangerous condition and then avoid liability by saying “we had no idea.”
Property owners don’t love the idea of being help liable for conditions they didn’t know about, but it’s a concept that ensures that property owners check their property, inspect their premises, and generally do whatever they can, to make sure that they are aware of, and fix, anything that could cause injury to other people.
How Long is Too Long?
This begs the question of when a property owner is assumed to know of a dangerous condition, even if they didn’t actually know it. The answer is largely, “it depends on what the jury thinks.”
The question of how long a dangerous condition has to exist until we just assume the property owner should have known about it and done something about it, is something that a jury largely decides.
Many times, the answer to the question is based on the facts of a case. A busy supermarket may have to inspect its floors routinely—ten or fifteen minutes without anybody looking to see if there are any spills or objects in the aisles, may be too long, whereas if you were talking about a lightly travelled office building, fifteen minutes may be very appropriate.
Areas closer to where danger could be, may need to be inspected more regularly—for example, the doorway that leads to the outdoors when it is raining or snowing, where grime or water or ice can be trekked in very quickly and easily, would need more frequent inspections than other areas.
Often, safety experts are used to testify what is standard practice in a given industry, with given conditions.
Is someone liable for causing you to fall or injure yourself? Call the Boston personal injury lawyers at The Law Office of Joseph Linnehan, Jr. today at 617-275-4200 for help.
Source:
iirsm.org/news/what-constructive-knowledge
