Accidents that occur in your own home or workplace if they are caused by negligence or carelessness of other parties may be actionable, enabling a person who is injured in their own home or place of work to collect damages for medical expenses, loss of wages, pain, and suffering and permanent damages to their body from the responsible parties. An example of this is when a ceiling collapses because of a water leak which the owner of a building was aware of but failed to repair, and a piece of the ceiling strikes an individual on the head and/or body, causing injuries. In such a situation, the person injured can bring an action against the owner of the building, and recover damages for injuries sustained.

An example of such a  premises liability case  was a $2.8 million settlement obtained by my law firm for a one-year-old boy who was struck on the head by a large chunk of the ceiling, which fell in his bedroom in his mother’s apartment in an apartment building in Brooklyn, causing the boy to suffer recurring epileptic seizures. In that case, the ceiling collapse occurred three weeks after a judge had ordered the owner of the building to make appropriate repairs to the building, including the ceiling that collapsed, which were not made.

It was not necessary to have a court order for repairs to be successful in obtaining damages for injuries to the boy caused by the ceiling collapse. As long as the owner of the building knew or should have known of the dangerous condition that caused the ceiling to collapse, a victim can be successful in obtaining damages from the owner of the building.

In any event, if you are injured as a result of an accident in your home or workplace, it is advisable to seek advice from a lawyer as to whether you are entitled to damages for the injury you sustained.

Sanford Rubenstein, Esq., is the senior partner at the Brooklyn law firm of Rubenstein & Rynecki, which handles all types of cases for personal injury, medical malpractice and cases involving police misconduct. This article can also be found in  Local 237 Newsline.