What to Do After a Slip and Fall in a Pennsylvania Store or Business

A bad fall on someone else's property is jarring and often embarrassing, and most people's instinct is to brush it off and leave. That instinct can cost you both your recovery and any claim. Here's what to do instead.

In the moment

•     Stay down until you've assessed yourself. Getting up fast on an adrenaline spike is how minor falls become serious ones.

•     Report it to a manager or employee before you leave, and ask that an incident report be created. Get the name of the person you told.

•     Photograph the hazard immediately — the spill, the ice, the broken step, the unmarked drop, the torn mat — and the surrounding area. Conditions get cleaned up within minutes, which can erase the evidence.

•     Note whether there were any warning signs (a "wet floor" cone, for instance) — or the absence of them.

•     Get names and numbers of anyone who saw it happen.

Afterward

•     Get medical care and describe the fall accurately to the provider. As with car crashes, a documented visit close in time connects the injury to the fall.

•     Keep the shoes and clothing you were wearing, unwashed if possible — they can matter if the business later claims your footwear was the problem.

•     Write down what happened while it's fresh: the time, the lighting, what you were doing, exactly where you fell.

Does a business automatically owe me money if I fall there?

No — and this is the most common misunderstanding. A property owner isn't responsible just because you were hurt on their property. In Pennsylvania, a business that invites the public in owes its customers a duty to keep the premises reasonably safe and to warn of dangers it knows about or should have discovered. The key questions are usually: was there a genuinely dangerous condition, and did the business know about it (or should it have, with reasonable care) and fail to fix or warn about it in a reasonable time?

A puddle that a customer spilled thirty seconds before you walked through is different from a leak the store ignored for hours. That difference — what the business knew and how long the hazard existed — is often the heart of a slip-and-fall claim.

What if I was partly at fault — I was looking at my phone?

You may still have a claim. Pennsylvania uses a "modified comparative negligence" rule: as long as you were not more at fault than the property owner, you can still recover, though your compensation is reduced by your share of the fault. If you're found more than 50% responsible, you generally cannot recover. Being partly distracted doesn't automatically end a claim — it's one factor among several.

Talk it through with someone local. If you have questions about your own situation, the attorneys at Joyce, Carmody & Moran can review what happened and explain your options — no cost for the first conversation, and no obligation. We are based in Pittston and handle injury matters throughout Luzerne County.