Calgary Slip and Fall Lawyer

This video features Steve Grover, a Personal Injury attorney based in Alberta, Canada.

How to Find Out If You Have a Case

Video Transcript:

Steve Grover: 

These cases have to be taken seriously, it's not a joke. Unfortunately, like I talked about the banana peel, that's the society's perception of it, but our office takes it very seriously.

Rob Rosenthal: 

So if you're hurt after a slip trip or fall, what are your rights and how do you recover for your damages? Well, we're gonna find out right now on this episode of Ask the Lawyer. My guest is Alberta lawyer Steve Grover. And I'll remind you right off the top, if you'd like to ask Steve questions about your situation, just go to askthelawyers.com, click the button up at the top that says 'Ask a Lawyer'. There's a very simple form, doesn't cost you anything to ask a question. Or you can just call the phone number you'll see on the screen during our conversation, Steve it's good to see you, thank you for making some time to help us out.

Steve Grover: 

Nice to see you again. Thank you for having me Rob.

Rob Rosenthal: 

So let's just... We're talking slip, trip, fall, those sort of things. What are some of the more common ones you see in your area?

Steve Grover: 

I mean, slip and falls is the typical slip and fall where someone slips on ice or some foreign substance in a shopping center, they fall backwards, they hit their head or they fracture, they have a soft tissue injury where they injure their back. We generically use the term slip and fall, but there are trip and falls where you trip over an item and more of the biomechanics is where you're falling forward on a trip and fall. And so slip and fall is a generic term that we use, but we see them all our office, slip and fall trip and falls. Falls and general stuff like that.

Rob Rosenthal: 

Where are some areas that these occur where there could be cases, is it shopping centers, is it municipal sidewalks? Take me through that.

Steve Grover: 

I mean, our office has been doing slip and falls or trip and falls in Alberta for over 20 years. We've seen them all over the board in front of someone's house where they're not shoveling the snow on their driveway, where there's a build of snow and ice, unfortunately someone falls down, you know, injures themselves. We've seen them in shopping centers were the... You know, the house, the cleaners of the shopping center are not taking care of the front entrance and there's a build up of water where people slip or trip forward and injure themselves. So we see them all over the place in Calgary and Alberta in general.

Rob Rosenthal: 

So where does responsibility fall in these situations do they even seem... At first, people probably think, hey, it's Canada, there's snow on the ground. You know it's slippery, you need to be careful, but there are times when there can be someone else's fault for these things. Tell me how that responsibility... How do you determine that?

Steve Grover: 

In Alberta, slip and fall, trip and falls, they're generally governed by the Occupiers Liability Act in Alberta, and there is a duty of care for, give you example, shopping center. If you're going in and you're gonna go to The Gap and buy some clothes for your daughter, obviously, you're a visitor of the shopping center, you're gonna spend your money, and the shopping center has to make sure that the premises is clean and safe, so there's not a build-up of ice, there's not an ice cream cone that was accidentally left on the floor where it hasn't been cleaned up. So there is a duty of care on the occupier of the property, like a shopping center, there's a duty of care on if you own a house in Alberta to shovel your walk, shovel your driveway, not to create a hazard, I think that's the key in Alberta, is looking to see if there's a hazard, and then looking at what is a duty of care of the occupier of that property, and that usually is governed by the Occupiers Liability Act here in Alberta.

Rob Rosenthal: 

What if it's a municipal property, government property, something like that, does that change the cases, does make it more challenging? What's the thought?

Steve Grover: 

It makes it way more challenging. The biggest hurdle that we find in Alberta, it's not a negligence, it's not a standard of care just general negligence, you have to prove gross negligence to the City of Calgary. That they knew of the problem, they had someone go out and they say, oh, that's interesting. But they never went back and hired anyone to clean up the area. And that's a very strict standard to meet here in Alberta. When we have calls like against municipality here in Alberta, we have to take them very carefully. We wanna make sure that the person has notified the city or if it's early on, we can notify them. We have to get our investigators out right away to prove that there is gross negligence. And there's that bigger, higher standard of care unfortunately against municipalities or government agencies here in Alberta.

Rob Rosenthal: 

I think sometimes I don't know if it's just because we call it a slip and fall or whatever, but people are used to you fall down, you get a bump, you get up and you go on. But as you mentioned earlier, it seems like some of these could have very serious injuries involved in these.

Steve Grover: 

Yeah, I mean, growing up, you always see the cartoon where someone's walking, they slip on the banana peel, they fall back and everyone laughs. Unfortunately, that is the perception of society of a slip and fall. But I've been doing this for 20 years, these cases are very serious. If someone has a duty of care to shovel their walk and they know someone's gonna be over at their house and someone falls down and breaks their leg or breaks their hip, and it's ongoing injury that will affect their ability to work and there's the treatment. I mean, these cases have to be taken seriously, it's not a joke. Unfortunately, like I talked about the banana peel, that's the society's perception of it, but our office takes it very seriously. We investigate these claims, we wanna hold the person accountable because if it wasn't for that hazard, that person would never slipped and fell, never injured themselves, and you know, their life would have been as it was before the accident.

Rob Rosenthal: 

We talk all the time, everytime we talk, Steve, I think about how important it is to get an attorney involved early. I would think especially in these kind of cases, because conditions can change so quickly that it's really important to get somebody to start the investigation as early as possible.

Steve Grover: 

Yeah, and in the Calgary area we have something where they're called chinooks in the winter time, where it could be minus 20 one day and these warm winds come off the Pacific Ocean, go through the Rocky Mountains and the next day it's plus five. That creates a problem here in Calgary where the ice and snow will melt right away in the evening, it turns to ice. So we have that issue here in Calgary. In Canada, general. Yeah, it's a snowy condition, we have winter. But our duty is to get out there, we hire investigators right away to go take pictures, you know, talk to witnesses, get pictures of the shoes our client was wearing, what type of clothes they're wearing. Making sure the person knows what they fell on, because that's a really important question 'cause I've got a lot of people have come to see me in my office and they say, well, Steve, I fell. And I'll ask them directly, well what did you fall on? I don't know. Well, unfortunately, we can't prove there's a hazard there. And unfortunately, you don't have a case. And so it's really important to do your investigation right away before you file a suit on the claim.

Rob Rosenthal: 

Lots of really helpful and interesting information. Steve, thank you for making some time to answer questions.

Steve Grover: 

Thank you, have a great day, Rob.

Rob Rosenthal: 

That's it for this episode of Ask the Lawyer. My guest has been Alberta lawyer Steve Grover. I remind you, if you'd like to ask Steve questions about your particular situation go to askthelawyers.com, click the button at the top that says 'Ask a Lawyer'. There's a form and it doesn't cost you anything to ask your questions. Thanks for watching. I'm Rob Rosenthal for Ask the Lawyers.

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