Premises Liability in Mississippi
Premises liability is a legal concept based on the principle that owners and occupiers must maintain a reasonably safe environment for their visitors. Mississippi’s premises liability laws encompass the legal responsibilities that property owners have when injuries occur on their property due to unsafe conditions.
Some key aspects involved in premises liability cases in Mississippi are as follows:
Negligence
The core of a premises liability case is the ability to prove negligence. You must be able to show that the property owner or occupier failed to provide a reasonable level of care to prevent your injury. In other words, it must be made clear that the property owner did not take reasonable steps to secure the establishment or warn its visitors of potential dangers. A lawyer from Brown, Bass & Jeter will be able to gather evidence of the owner’s negligence to help build your case.
Unsafe Conditions
On the subject of potential dangers, there must have been a dangerous condition on the property that the owner or occupier should have reasonably known about. You, as the injured party, must be able to prove that such an unsafe condition was what directly caused your injury.
Comparative Fault
Mississippi follows a pure comparative negligence rule, which means that if the injured party is partially at fault, their compensation may be reduced in proportion to their degree of fault.
Types of Visitors
The level of care owed by the property owner varies depending on the type of visitor. There are three particular kinds of visitors to a property: invitees, licensees, and trespassers.
Invitees are people invited onto the property for business purposes, such as customers in a retail space. The highest duty of care is owed to invitees. Individuals who are on the property for social reasons (guests at a party, for instance) are deemed licensees and must be warned of known dangers that are not immediately obvious. Generally, property owners owe the least duty of care to trespassers.
However, should a child wander onto an individual’s property with the intent of playing with something that entices them (but is ultimately dangerous), the property owner is still liable for any injuries the child sustains as a result. This is because the child could not have known of the inherent danger of the object on the property given their young age, and the property owner should have done whatever they could to remove it from view or prevent the child from accessing it as opposed to leaving it unattended.
The meaning of trespassers is clear: uninvited individuals who are not welcome on the property.
