Morristown Inadequate Lighting Injury Attorney
Serving Clients Injured Due to Poor Lighting in New Jersey
Unless you are sleeping, adequate lighting is necessary for almost every situation to ensure the safe navigation of any premises by an invited guest. Whether it is your home, grocery store, or at an apartment complex, light is needed to see where you are, what may be in your way, or to identify dangers that lay ahead. Property owners have a duty of care to ensure the safety of their guests. If you were injured on a property as a result of poor or inadequate lighting you may be entitled to financial recovery.
A person is entitled to recovery if they are injured as a result of poor lighting because New Jersey recognizes that property owners have a legal obligation to maintain their properties and keep them in a reasonably safe condition for expected visitors, and this includes providing adequate lighting. Properties that are required to have adequate lighting are those that are open to the public, passersby, and invited guests and the list of locations that owe a duty is vast.
For instance, if one were to think about it logically, there are a number of places a person may go in a given day and almost none are traversed in complete darkness. We, as guests, may go to gas stations and visit the attached convenience stores, or we may visit a friend at an apartment complex and pick up a sweet treat at the grocery store along the way. In each of these locations, the owners have a legal duty of care to provide adequate lighting as there are dangers present that are not made known without light. Common dangers include slip and fall accidents where adequate lighting would have prevented the fall.
Call our Morristown inadequate lighting injury attorney to discuss your unique needs, concerns, and the situation regarding your inadequate lighting accident in a free and confidential consultation with our legal team today.
Slip and Fall Injuries Due to Poor Lighting Sussex County NJ
You may leave a store and be heading to your car when you suddenly trip on something unseen on the ground. Perhaps the thing you tripped over, such as a raised sidewalk, would have been visible had there been proper lighting, and you would not have been injured but for the owner’s negligence in providing adequate light. Another example of insufficient lighting is in an apartment complex where a stairway or stairwell is not adequately illuminated. Someone who is unfamiliar with the complex could fall down the stairs and be seriously injured as a result of the owner failing to provide adequate light. Some falls may even occur in a building that is typically expected to be dark, such as a movie theater. A movie would not be as enjoyable if there were bright lights shining upon every aspect of the theater and therefore it is not required to be bright. However, the means of egress (exiting path) and ingress must be lit and the entire path to the emergency exit should be visible as people need to know how to exit the building safely in the event of an emergency. Not all dangers include slip and fall, but instead, involve the possibility of being a victim of a crime due to poor lighting.
Victim of a Crime on Poorly Lit Property Morristown NJ
If you have ever left a store, mall, or apartment complex in a high crime area when it is late at night, then you know it can be cause for alarm. The property owners should provide adequate lighting to ensure the safety of its guests, including you, to allow the visitor to see who or what may be lurking in the area. Parking lots can be a dangerous place if one cannot see because the owner chose poor lighting. A thief or assailant may take advantage of the poor lighting to physically assault someone or rob him while walking to his car. A mall parking lot can become a dangerous place during the holiday season when shoppers are busy buying gifts and trying to locate their cars in a dark parking lot. Thieves might take advantage of the situation and attack someone because they know the lighting would make it hard to see or identify them.
If something as simple as lighting could reduce these risks then it must be implemented and property owners will be held accountable for failing to act responsibly. Under the theory of premises liability, if the owner of the property knows, or has reason to believe, that a condition exists on his or her property that may pose a risk of injury to guests, he must address the issue and fix the property. An owner of a property cannot simply ignore the safety of its guests and he owes a duty of care to you as a guest.
Contact a Newton Injury Lawyer Handling Cases Involving Poor or Inadequate Lighting Today
If you have suffered physical injury as a result of inadequate lighting due to negligent property owners, you may be entitled to recovery. Attorney Michael Burakoff strongly believes in not only working closely with his clients but with their families as well. He understands just how stressful an injury and the injury recovery process can be for a family, and for that reason our law firm keeps our clients and their families highly informed and involved throughout the legal process.
To speak with Michael Burakoff and our legal team today in a free and confidential consultation regarding any kind of accident in a poorly lit area, your options for making a successful personal injury recovery, and how exactly we can help you to do so, please contact us online, or through either our Morristown office or our Newton office at 973-455-1567.
We will review your injuries, the conditions of the property involved, laws and ordinances, and any evidence that exists to determine liability.
