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Injured Because of an Unsafe Property Condition in Middletown?
A fall in a store, an injury on a broken apartment stairway, or an accident at a vacation rental can leave you facing medical bills and time away from work.
Property owners are not responsible for every accident, but Rhode Island law requires reasonable care for the safety of people who can reasonably be expected on their premises.
Liability often depends on who controlled the area, whether reasonable precautions were taken, and how the dangerous condition caused the injury.
At Marasco & Nesselbush, our Middletown premises liability attorneys represent people injured at commercial and residential properties throughout Newport County and Rhode Island.
We investigate premises liability accidents, obtain inspection and maintenance records, and identify potentially liable parties when unsafe property conditions cause injuries.
Our Middletown office serves residents and visitors on Aquidneck Island, including those injured at properties in Newport and Portsmouth.
Contact Marasco & Nesselbush for a free consultation.
We handle qualifying personal injury cases on a contingency fee basis, with attorney fees and responsibility for case expenses explained in the written agreement.
What Must Be Established in a Premises Liability Claim?
An accident on someone else’s property does not automatically establish negligence.
To prove liability, the injured person generally must establish a legal duty, a breach of that duty, a causal connection to the injury, and recoverable damages.
A store may have ignored a reported spill, while a landlord may have left a damaged common stairway unrepaired despite repeated complaints.
Each claim turns on who was responsible for the hazard and what steps reasonably could have prevented the injury.
Who Controlled the Area Where the Injury Occurred?
The property owner may not be the person responsible for daily maintenance.
A landlord may maintain a shared entrance, a tenant may control the interior of a leased shop, and an outside contractor may be responsible for a particular repair or cleaning task.
Lease provisions, service contracts, and property records can help establish which owner, tenant, or contractor controlled the area.
A maintenance contract may assign duties without automatically relieving another party of its own legal responsibilities.
Did Someone Know, or Have Reason to Know, About the Hazard?
Notice is a central issue in many claims involving spills, broken surfaces, and other dangerous conditions.
Actual notice may be shown by a prior complaint, an employee’s observation, or a maintenance request identifying the problem before the injury.
Constructive notice concerns whether the condition existed long enough, or was sufficiently apparent during reasonable inspections, that the responsible party should have discovered it.
A spill that occurred seconds before a fall can present a different case from leaking equipment that repeatedly leaves the same aisle wet.
In DeLong v. Rhode Island Sports Center, Inc. (2018), the Rhode Island Supreme Court examined evidence of a dangerous condition, the property operator’s notice, and the connection between the condition and the injury.
When a business or contractor created the hazard, the evidence of that conduct may be particularly important to determining liability.
Did the Dangerous Condition Actually Cause the Injury?
Evidence must connect the property owner’s failure to repair a broken step to the fall and resulting injuries.
Witness accounts, incident reports, footwear, video, medical records, and the location of the injury can help establish that connection.
The same investigation may need to distinguish an injury caused by the fall from symptoms or limitations that existed beforehand.
Marasco & Nesselbush’s Premises Liability Experience
Joseph Marasco and Donna Nesselbush founded Marasco & Nesselbush in 1999, and our attorneys have recovered more than $500 million for clients across the firm’s practice areas.
Our premises liability cases include injuries caused by unsafe commercial stairways and poorly maintained residential buildings.
$2.9 Million Rhode Island Commercial Property Settlement
We obtained a $2.9 million settlement after a woman tripped over a wooden board being used to hold open a door at the bottom of a commercial building stairwell.
The slip and fall case involved a woman working for a building tenant who suffered an ankle injury requiring several surgeries and later developed complex regional pain syndrome.
Attorney Thomas L. Moran pursued the claim against the commercial property owner and worked with medical and human-factors experts.
A human-factors expert identified the board as a tripping hazard and evaluated safer ways to keep the door open.
$1 Million Settlement Involving an Unsafe Window
We also obtained a $1 million premises liability settlement involving a child who fell from a window after a landlord failed to maintain the property.
Thomas Moran also handled a $6.25 million South Carolina slip-and-fall settlement involving injuries that ultimately led to the client’s death.
Past results do not guarantee a similar recovery.
Injured and not sure what your case is worth? Find out for free.
Property Hazards That Can Lead to Injuries in Middletown
In Middletown, premises liability accidents can occur at stores, apartment buildings, restaurants, hotels, and vacation rentals.
A shopping center’s exterior walkway, an apartment building’s shared stairs, and a hotel’s pool deck may have different parties responsible for upkeep.
Wet Floors and Spills in Stores and Restaurants
Customers may fall on spilled liquids, tracked-in rainwater, freshly cleaned floors, or leaks from refrigeration and plumbing equipment.
A store’s cleaning logs, inspection procedures, employee communications, and surveillance footage may show whether the hazard was reported or reasonably discoverable.
A warning sign may help protect customers, but its placement and visibility matter when a fall occurs.
A slip-and-fall claim may be supported when a business failed to take reasonable steps to address a foreseeable danger that caused an injury.
Damaged Stairs, Railings, and Apartment Walkways
Loose stair treads, missing handrails, broken exterior steps, and uneven flooring can cause falls in apartment buildings and commercial properties.
A landlord’s responsibility for a shared stairway can differ from responsibility for conditions entirely inside a rented unit.
Rhode Island recognizes obligations involving common areas retained under a landlord’s control, while liability for defects in leased premises depends on additional legal circumstances.
Maintenance requests, inspections, repair invoices, and earlier photographs may show that the property owner failed to address a known hazard.
Hotel, Vacation Rental, and Pool Hazards
A guest may be injured on a poorly maintained exterior stairway, a wet pool deck, or a damaged walkway at a hotel or vacation rental.
Property ownership, management agreements, and the operator’s responsibility for inspections may determine which parties can be held liable after an injury on private property.
Pool-related incidents can involve defective barriers, unsafe surfaces, or maintenance failures, but the presence of water or a pool does not establish negligence by itself.
An incident involving defective equipment may also require examining a manufacturer or maintenance company under a separate legal theory.
Falling Merchandise and Other Indoor Hazards
Unsecured shelves, falling objects, loose floor mats, and obstructions left in walking areas can cause injuries without a person slipping on liquid.
Shelf-loading practices, employee actions, and the placement of merchandise can help establish how the hazard developed.
Photographs of the original arrangement and available surveillance footage can be especially important because items may be moved immediately after the incident.
Negligent Security and Foreseeable Assaults
A negligent security claim may arise when a foreseeable assault causes intentional harm at an apartment complex, hotel, parking area, or entertainment venue.
A property owner is not automatically liable for someone else’s criminal act, and the claim requires careful analysis of the duty to protect against foreseeable harm.
Prior assaults, known threats, inadequate security, broken access controls, and the circumstances of the attack can affect whether the owner had a duty to take precautions.
The presence of a broken lock or poor lighting alone does not establish that an owner was legally responsible for an assault.
Snow and Ice Injuries: Rhode Island’s Ongoing-Storm Rule
Rhode Island generally allows property owners a reasonable period after a winter storm ends to clear natural accumulations of snow and ice.
Under the Connecticut Rule, property owners generally do not have a duty to remove natural accumulations while a storm is still underway.
In Allen v. Sitrin (2024), a woman was injured on the steps of Newport City Hall while winter precipitation was falling.
The Rhode Island Supreme Court vacated the judgment in her favor, finding that the city had no duty to clear the natural accumulation during the storm and that the unusual-circumstances exception had not been established.
An exception may apply when the property owner’s conduct creates or worsens a danger beyond the ordinary risk of the storm, but simply failing to remove fresh snow during active precipitation does not establish that exception.
The rule also does not automatically resolve a case involving older ice that formed before a new storm began.
Weather records, photographs, time-stamped video, maintenance logs, and evidence about how the ice formed can be decisive.
A Middletown snow-and-ice claim may turn on when precipitation ended, how the ice formed, and whether the owner created or worsened the hazard.
Rhode Island Rules Affecting Property Injury Claims
Reasonable Care and the Visitor’s Status
Rhode Island generally requires private property owners and other possessors to exercise reasonable care for customers, invited guests, and others reasonably expected on the premises.
The duty can also protect tenants and social guests injured by hazards that reasonable maintenance or inspections would have revealed.
A visitor’s legal status matters when entering without permission: adult trespassers generally are owed no duty beyond protection from willful or wanton injury, as explained in Tantimonico v. Allendale Mutual Insurance Co..
Claims involving children, recreational land, or other special circumstances can raise additional legal duties and defenses.
Open and Obvious Conditions and Comparative Negligence
An insurer may argue that the condition was visible, that the injured person was looking at a phone, or that a warning had been provided.
Visibility and warnings can affect the analysis, but calling a hazard obvious does not automatically decide every premises liability claim.
Rhode Island follows pure comparative negligence under R.I. Gen. Laws § 9-20-4.
A person found partly responsible for an injury may still recover compensation, reduced by the percentage of fault assigned to them.
For example, a $100,000 damages award would generally be reduced to $75,000 if the injured person were found 25% responsible.
Photographs, warnings, and witness accounts may help determine each party’s share of responsibility.
The Three-Year Lawsuit Deadline
Under R.I. Gen. Laws § 9-1-14(b), most Rhode Island personal injury lawsuits must be filed within three years after the cause of action accrues.
Claims involving minors or public entities may have different filing or notice requirements.
Waiting for an insurance company’s response does not automatically extend the time allowed to file suit.
Special Notice Rules for Some Public-Property Injuries
An injury on government-owned property can involve different defendants, procedures, and legal limitations from an injury at a private business.
Under R.I. Gen. Laws § 45-15-9, certain injuries involving defective municipal highways, causeways, or bridges require notice to the responsible town within 60 days.
State law requires the written notice to identify the time, place, and cause of the injury.
The 60-day provision does not automatically apply to every injury in a public building or on a public sidewalk.
Other government-related claims may involve separate requirements, making prompt identification of the responsible entity important.
What to Do After an Injury on Someone Else’s Property
A serious fall or other property injury may require emergency care, and some symptoms become more apparent over the following hours or days.
If you can do so safely, take the following steps:
- Get medical care. Seek treatment for pain, dizziness, head trauma, difficulty bearing weight, or other injuries, and describe what happened to the treating clinician.
- Report the incident. Tell the property manager or business operator what happened and ask for a copy or identifying information for the incident report.
- Photograph the condition. Record the spill, broken step, lighting, warning signs, surrounding area, and any visible injuries before valuable evidence disappears.
- Identify witnesses. Obtain contact information for anyone who saw the fall or observed the hazard beforehand.
- Preserve relevant items. Keep the shoes, clothing, damaged belongings, and other physical evidence associated with the accident.
- Record the property’s identity. Save the business name, address, and contact information, particularly if the building has multiple tenants or managers.
- Keep records of the consequences. Retain medical bills, prescriptions, work restrictions, wage records, and receipts for injury-related expenses.
- Ask about evidence preservation and deadlines. Video may be overwritten, hazards repaired, and special government-notice periods may expire before a routine insurance investigation ends.
If you leave for emergency treatment before taking photographs, witness accounts, incident reports, and camera footage may still help establish the conditions at the scene.
Our attorneys can seek preservation of surveillance footage, maintenance records, inspection logs, and other evidence that may not be available directly to the injured person.
Compensation for Injuries Caused by Unsafe Property Conditions
Falls and other unsafe-property incidents can cause fractures, torn ligaments, concussions, traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, and lasting mobility problems.
A wrist fracture may prevent hands-on work, while a hip fracture or neurological injury may require surgery, long-term treatment, and assistance with daily activities.
Economic damages cover measurable financial losses, while non-economic damages may address pain, emotional distress, and reduced quality of life.
Depending on the evidence, recoverable damages may include:
- Medical expenses: Emergency treatment, hospitalization, surgery, medication, and physical therapy.
- Future medical bills: Anticipated treatment, mobility equipment, and assistance needed for documented future medical needs.
- Lost income: Wages missed during recovery and reduced earning capacity when injuries have lasting effects.
- Pain and suffering: Physical pain, reduced mobility, and the effect of the injury on ordinary activities.
- Emotional distress and impairment: Legally recoverable psychological harm, scarring, or permanent disability.
- Other losses: Reasonable out-of-pocket expenses and property damage caused by the incident when recoverable.
Insurance adjusters may dispute whether the property was unsafe, whether their insured had notice, or whether the accident caused the claimed medical problems.
An early settlement offer may not account for additional surgery, prolonged rehabilitation, or future medical expenses that are still being evaluated.
Our attorneys examine medical records, expert opinions, employment information, and insurance coverage before negotiating with the insurer for a fair settlement based on documented losses.
When settlement negotiations fail, filing a lawsuit may be necessary to secure compensation for documented losses.
A signed settlement release can limit further claims arising from the injury, so the scope of the agreement matters as much as the amount offered.
Punitive damages require an unusually serious showing of willful, reckless, or wicked misconduct under Rhode Island law, not merely proof of negligent maintenance.
If negligence caused a death, the estate’s representative may have grounds to bring a Rhode Island wrongful death claim under the applicable statutes.
Speak With a Middletown Premises Liability Lawyer
Marasco & Nesselbush represents people injured in commercial buildings, rental properties, hotels, stores, and other locations where unsafe conditions may create legal responsibility.
We investigate the property condition, identify who was responsible for maintenance, and pursue fair compensation for injuries and losses supported by the evidence.
You can meet with us at 809 Aquidneck Avenue, Unit 201C, Middletown, RI 02842, or call (401) 236-7006.
Contact Marasco & Nesselbush for a free case evaluation.
We handle qualifying claims on a contingency fee basis, and the written fee agreement explains the attorney fee, case expenses, and responsibility for costs if there is no recovery.
Talk to a lawyer and get a free case evaluation today.
