Fort Myers Slip and Fall Settlements: Myths That Cost Injured People Money
The person who calls our office a week after a fall has usually been told something wrong. A neighbor, a co-worker, a friend who watched a daytime legal show — somebody convinced them they had no case. Sometimes it is the insurance adjuster who told them. By the time they reach us, they have already half-talked themselves out of the claim that was theirs to make.
For the last twenty-five years, in addition to practicing law, I have held a Florida real estate broker license, and that broker work has shaped how we read property cases. We understand what a property owner is actually supposed to be doing — the inspection logs, the maintenance contracts, the common-area duty in a lease, the difference between a manager who walks the property every morning and one who waits for a complaint. That double lens, lawyer plus broker, is part of why slip-and-fall and premises-liability work has become a steady part of our Fort Myers practice along Summerlin Road, McGregor Boulevard, Cleveland Avenue, and the medical-plaza belt off Daniels Parkway.
This piece is a plain-English walk through what Florida law actually says about a fall on someone else’s property, where the common myths come from, and what to do in the first week if it just happened to you. Nothing here replaces a conversation about your own facts, but it should at least keep you from giving up on a real case.
What Florida law requires of a property owner
Florida premises liability is governed by a small stack of statutes and a long line of cases. Three statutes do most of the work in slip-and-fall claims.
Florida Statute 768.075 sets the duty owed to different categories of people on a property. An invitee — a customer in a grocery store, a guest in a hotel lobby, a patient walking into a medical plaza — is owed the highest duty: the property must be kept reasonably safe, and warning must be given of hazards the owner knows about or should know about. A licensee, like a social guest, is owed less. A trespasser is owed less still. Most of the cases that come through our office involve invitees.
Florida Statute 768.0755 deals with what lawyers call transitory foreign substances — the dropped salad dressing in the produce aisle, the puddle in the entryway after a Fort Myers afternoon storm, the grease near a fryer. Under this statute, an injured person has to show that the business had actual knowledge of the hazard, or that it had been there long enough that the business should have known. Plain English: it is not enough that you fell on a wet floor; you have to show the store either knew or had time to find out. That is why we tell clients to photograph the scene the same day, ask for witness names, and not leave without an incident report.
Florida Statute 768.0710 covers the older negligent-maintenance cases — cracked sidewalks, uneven pavement, a missing handrail, a riser that does not match the others on a staircase. These are structural conditions, not spills. The statute and the case law around it walk through what a reasonable owner is supposed to do to find these problems and fix them.
And when the property is owned by a city, a county, or the state — a courthouse walkway, a public park, a sidewalk along a county-maintained road — Florida Statute 768.28 changes the rules. There is a pre-suit written notice that has to go to the correct agency, damages are capped at $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident absent a legislative claims bill, and the deadlines are shorter than in a typical case. We have seen perfectly real claims die because the notice went to the wrong department.
Factors a court considers
When a slip-and-fall case is fought, a Lee County jury is going to be asked to weigh a handful of things. They tend to come back to the same questions:
- How long had the hazard been there before the fall? Five minutes is a very different case from five hours.
- Did the property have a written inspection schedule, and did they actually follow it that day?
- Had anyone complained about the same condition before? A prior complaint that went ignored is one of the strongest pieces of evidence in a premises case.
- Was the hazard open and obvious, or hidden by lighting, glare, a display rack, or the angle of approach?
- What footwear and behavior did the injured person have? Distraction matters, but it is usually a percentage-of-fault question, not a case-killer.
- Was there a warning cone, a wet-floor sign, or a verbal warning given before the fall?
None of these is by itself dispositive. A jury weighs the whole picture, and that is where good investigation in the first thirty days makes or breaks a case.
The trivial-defect doctrine — why it is not as clean as it sounds
Defense lawyers love the trivial-defect doctrine, and they raise it constantly in sidewalk and parking-lot cases. The shorthand most people repeat is that anything under about an inch of vertical lip is not actionable. That is not a Florida statute. It comes from older case law and it has never been a bright-line rule.
What courts actually do is look at the totality. A three-quarter-inch lip in a brightly lit, well-marked walkway at noon may indeed be trivial. The same lip in a covered breezeway with bad overhead lighting, painted the same color as the surrounding concrete, after the property had already received complaints, is a very different conversation. Foot traffic matters. Prior incidents matter. Whether the hazard sits where people are reasonably looking — at a doorway threshold, at the edge of a parking-lot wheel stop, in a stairwell — matters. I have had cases turn on whether a particular hazard was in shadow at the hour the client walked through.
So when an adjuster tells you on day three that the lip you tripped over was too small to count, that is the start of the conversation, not the end of it.
What we see most in Fort Myers
The Fort Myers premises cases that come into our office tend to cluster into a handful of patterns. Grocery and big-box spills along Cleveland Avenue and Colonial Boulevard, particularly during summer afternoons when customers track water in from the parking lot. Medical-plaza walkway and threshold falls off Summerlin Road and along Daniels Parkway, where older patients are walking from a parking space to a clinic door. Hotel and resort lobby and pool-deck falls on the McGregor Boulevard side of town and out toward Sanibel. Parking-lot wheel-stop trips and curb-drop trips in retail centers near Pine Island Road and along the I-75 corridor near Alico Road. Stairwell falls in older apartment complexes where handrails have loosened over the years.
Each pattern has its own evidence problem. Grocery stores have surveillance video that is often overwritten in seven to thirty days if no one demands preservation. Medical plazas are usually maintained by a separate property management company, not the medical tenant — so the right defendant is not the doctor’s office. Hotels keep maintenance logs that sometimes show prior complaints. Apartment complexes have inspection records that a lawyer can pull through discovery. Knowing which thread to pull first is most of the work.
A walkway case that turned on the property’s own records
One I think about often involved an older client who tripped on a jagged section of broken concrete in a walkway at a medical plaza off Summerlin Road. She was on her way to an appointment, mid-morning, no rush, no phone in her hand. The section of concrete had been deteriorating for months. Other tenants had complained to the property manager. Nothing had been done.
She came down hard on her left side. By the time the paramedics had her at the hospital, the imaging showed a femoral neck fracture. She ended up with a partial hip replacement and a long stretch of inpatient rehabilitation. At her age, that surgery is not just a procedure; it is a turning point. The independence she had walking into that appointment did not come all the way back.
The defense argued the obvious things — she should have been looking where she walked, the defect was minor, the management company was not on notice. The record told a different story. Maintenance requests were in writing. A prior tenant complaint matched the exact stretch of walkway. Photos taken in the days after the fall showed a hazard nobody could reasonably call trivial.
The case resolved in a six-figure settlement that held the commercial property management company accountable. It did not give our client her old gait back. It did pay for the care she needed and acknowledge, in dollars, what had been taken from her.
What a property owner is supposed to be doing
This is where the broker side of our work shows up. Having spent twenty-five years as a Florida real estate broker in addition to representing injured Floridians, I have seen first-hand what a property owner’s reasonable safety obligations look like from the inside. They are not vague. They live in:
- Lease language. In most commercial leases the landlord retains common-area maintenance — sidewalks, parking lots, breezeways, exterior lighting. That allocation is rarely accidental, and it usually points to who has the duty when somebody falls.
- Inspection logs. A reasonably run property has a written walkthrough schedule. The frequency depends on the use — a grocery aisle is not a medical-plaza walkway — but the principle is the same. If a property cannot produce a log, that absence is itself evidence.
- Maintenance contracts. Parking-lot resealing, sidewalk repair, pressure washing, landscape trimming so sight lines stay clear. These are scheduled, line-itemed obligations in a well-managed property.
- Complaint intake. Tenants and customers report problems. A reasonable owner has a place those reports land, and a record of what was done about them. A property that loses or ignores written complaints is on shaky ground when a fall happens later in the same area.
- Lighting and signage. Especially in covered walkways and stairwells. A bulb that has been out for weeks is not a small detail in front of a jury.
When I read a premises case, I am reading it as a broker as much as a lawyer. I want to see the lease, the inspection records, the maintenance contracts, and the complaint history. That is usually where the case lives.
What to do if you fell
If you have already fallen, the first week is the part you can still control. Some practical steps, in the order I would do them:
- Get the medical care you need. Do not tough it out. A delayed ER visit becomes a defense argument that the injury came from somewhere else.
- Photograph the hazard the same day, from multiple angles, with something for scale. If you cannot, ask a family member to drive over and do it. Walkways get repaired quickly once a fall is reported.
- Ask for an incident report and ask for a copy. If the store will not give you one, write down who you spoke to and when.
- Get the names and phone numbers of any witnesses before you leave. Strangers scatter.
- Save the shoes you were wearing, unwashed, in a bag. Defense counsel will ask. Having them helps you, not the other side.
- Write down, that night, what you remember — the lighting, where you were looking, what was around the hazard, whether there were cones or warnings. Memory fades fast.
- Do not give a recorded statement to the property’s insurance carrier before you have talked to a lawyer. Adjusters are trained; you are not.
- Call a lawyer who handles premises cases before any video surveillance is overwritten. A written preservation letter in the first week is often the single most valuable thing a lawyer does on a slip-and-fall file.
Key Takeaways
- Florida Statute 768.0755 puts the burden on the injured person to show the business knew or should have known about a spill or transitory hazard — which is why same-day evidence matters.
- Florida’s modified comparative negligence rule, in effect since 2023, lets you recover if you are 50 percent or less at fault; over 50 percent and recovery is barred. Distraction reduces a claim; it rarely kills it.
- Claims against a city, county, or state property are alive but governed by Florida Statute 768.28 — pre-suit notice, $200,000 / $300,000 caps, and tighter deadlines.
- The trivial-defect doctrine is not a bright-line one-inch rule. Lighting, prior complaints, visibility, and context all weigh in.
- The strongest premises cases are built from the property side: leases, inspection logs, maintenance contracts, and prior complaints. Twenty-five years of broker work tells us where to look.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. Does Florida law require a slip-and-fall victim to prove the store knew about the spill?
For a transitory substance on a floor — water, grease, a dropped grape — Florida Statute 768.0755 puts the burden on the injured person to show the business had actual knowledge of the hazard or that it had been there long enough that the business should have known. That is why preserving evidence the same day matters so much. Photos of the spill, of any nearby caution cones (or the absence of them), and witness names go to that knowledge question.
Q2. I was partly distracted when I fell. Does that wipe out my claim in Florida?
Florida moved to a modified comparative negligence rule in 2023. If a jury assigns you 50 percent or less of the fault, your recovery is reduced by your percentage. If your share is more than 50 percent, you recover nothing. Distraction matters, but property condition, lighting, and prior complaints often weigh much heavier than people assume.
Q3. Can I bring a slip-and-fall claim against a city or county property in Lee County?
Yes, but Florida Statute 768.28 controls. A pre-suit written notice must go to the right agency, and damages against a government defendant are capped at $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident absent a legislative claims bill. Deadlines are shorter and unforgiving, so a claim against a county or municipal property should not sit on a desk for months.
Q4. How small does a sidewalk defect have to be before a court calls it trivial?
Older Florida cases sometimes treated height differences under about an inch as non-actionable, but that is not a fixed rule. Courts look at the whole picture: lighting, shadow, foot traffic, prior trips and complaints, weather, and whether the hazard was open and obvious. A three-quarter-inch lip in a poorly lit covered walkway can be very different from the same lip in clear daylight.
Q5. What is a Fort Myers slip-and-fall case actually worth?
There is no single number. A bruised wrist with full recovery is not the same case as a femoral neck fracture that ends in a hip replacement. We look at past and future medical bills, lost income, the permanence of any impairment, and the human side — pain, sleep, the activities a client cannot do anymore. Anyone quoting a value before reviewing the medical record is selling something.
Talk to our office
If you have fallen on a property in Fort Myers, Bonita Springs, Naples, Estero, Cape Coral, or Lehigh Acres and you are not sure where you stand, call us before you sign anything. The first conversation is free, and we work on a contingency basis — there is no fee unless we recover for you. Call 239-992-8259 or reach out through the contact form on our site. We answer the phone.
About the Author
Personal injury is the focus of David B. Pittman, Esq.’s practice in Fort Myers and across Lee County, and has been since he founded Pittman Law Firm, P.L. more than three decades ago, with a sustained focus on personal injury and premises-liability cases. The firm’s Fort Myers presence handles a steady stream of serious-injury work along the Daniels Parkway, Six Mile Cypress, McGregor Boulevard, Cleveland Avenue, and Summerlin Road corridors, and along I-75 between Estero and Bell Tower.
After undergraduate work at The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, David earned his JD at the University of South Carolina School of Law. He is AV-Preeminent at Martindale-Hubbell and a member of the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum.
David has held a Florida real estate broker license for twenty-five years, a credential that shapes how the firm reads the property side of premises cases. The firm handles personal injury cases across Lee and Collier Counties, serving Fort Myers, Bonita Springs, Naples, Cape Coral, Estero, and Lehigh Acres, with offices at Windsor Place in Bonita Springs (main) and Fort Myers (satellite). Call 239-992-8259 for a free consultation.
Disclaimer: The information on this page is for general educational purposes and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship with Pittman Law Firm, P.L. Every case turns on its own facts, and prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome in any future case. This page may be considered attorney advertising under the rules of The Florida Bar.