St. Petersburg Commercial Property Liability Lawyer
Commercial property refers to property that is used for a commercial purpose, usually where goods or services are sold or manufactured, and it is usually owned by a corporation or a company and not owned by a person for residential use. Commercial property liability is anything that the company may be liable for on their commercial property.
Commercial property owners must make sure that they have warnings up for any dangerous conditions they know or should know about, they must use reasonable care in creating a safe environment on their commercial property, and they must maintain their premises in a reasonably safe condition, including guarding against any foreseeable third-party crimes.The premises liability statute of limitation is four years. Liability is assigned to the person who owns or controls the area where the injury occurred on the commercial property. If you have sustained an injury on commercial property as the result of negligence, a St. Petersburg commercial property liability lawyer can help you pursue a case. A skilled personal injury lawyer can work diligently and advocate for you.
Potential Defendants
There can be multiple defendants in two different scenarios in commercial property cases. The first is if there are multiple companies or people who own the premises. The more common multiple defendant situation is when a company that owns the actual building leases the space to a different business that uses that space as their commercial property. This is a landlord-tenant type of situation, and usually, a person would sue both because they do not know who may have been in control of the actual property in question where the incident occurred. An experienced St. Petersburg commercial property liability lawyer will have experience pursuing claims with multiple defendants and can help an individual pursue their case.
What Happens When the At-Fault Party is Found Not At Fault
Usually, the amount of damages will be reduced by what the defendant was liable for. If a person sues a landlord and a tenant, and the landlord is 80 percent at fault, and the tenant is 20 percent at fault, but they cannot find the landlord, they can only sue the tenant which is only 20 percent at fault. If they are awarded a $100,000 judgment then they are only going to collect $20,000 from the tenant. The tenant does not have to pay the 80 percent of the landlord’s liability. So, a person can only collect from defendants that they can find.
Litigation of a commercial property liability case when the plaintiff is going against a large corporation is different in the sense that it usually means the defendant can hire a large law firm to push the plaintiff’s attorney around. However, typically a St. Petersburg commercial property liability lawyer enjoys going against big corporations because there is no collectability issue. The bigger the corporation, the more money there is for the plaintiff to go after and they will be able to satisfy all the damages necessary in a premises liability case. If it the claim is rejected, a person files a lawsuit. So, it is just a four-year statute of limitations.
Value of an Attorney
No one expects to be injured on commercial property, especially not due to the negligence of the property owners. Pursuing legal action can be intimidating when you are facing a larger business. A St. Petersburg commercial property lawyer will understand your reservations, and can guide you through the process of starting your claim. If you have been injured and wish to begin your case, contact an attorney.