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Protecting Guests, Visitors, and Customers: Slip and Fall Lawsuits in South Dakota

Slip and Fall Cases in South Dakota

We have all heard of the classic “slip and fall” lawsuit: an icy sidewalk, a wet linoleum floor, dangerously steep stairs. Someone falls and gets hurt, so they sue the owner of the premises. Sure, sometimes these lawsuits seem frivolous, but most of them are not. At the heart of every slip and fall case is a person who has been injured because someone else failed to take proper care of their premises. It is important to understand the actual law underneath these lawsuits.

The basic principle here is that of negligence. When you sue someone for being negligent, you are basically saying that they took an unreasonable risk that resulted in an injury. In the slip and fall context, we apply negligence principles to visitors on our property.

Broadly speaking, if an individual comes on your property without your permission, a trespasser, you owe them no duty of care. In other words, if the trespasser is hurt on your property, you are not liable. This makes sense to most people. Let’s imagine the situation differently. What if you are invited to your neighbor’s house? Better yet, what if you go into a business in order to buy something? In these situations, it seems to make sense to say that the owner of the property should have to take some care that you are not injured there.

This is exactly the idea behind slip and fall cases. In South Dakota, when an individual goes onto another’s property for the purpose of conducting business, he or she is called an “invitee.” Thus, when you go into your local grocery store, or into a car dealership, you are an invitee of the owner of that business. An owner owes an invitee a special duty that is not owed to uninvited guests or trespassers.

The owner owes the invitee the duty of exercising reasonable care for the benefit of the invitee’s safety, and thus, the owner becomes liable for any injuries suffered by the invitee that are caused by the owner failing to take such care. Reasonable care means keeping the property reasonably safe for the benefit of the invitee.

So what does it mean to be reasonable?

This is a tough question, and it is usually answered by a jury. In general, making something reasonably safe is taking a precaution that most ordinary people would take, considering the possible risks in not doing so. It is a very democratic idea, because it asks: what would most ordinary people do in this situation?

If most people would make sure they put up a “Caution: Wet Floor Sign”, then that is what reasonable care is. If most people would make sure that the sidewalk leading up to their business is salted every morning during winter months, then that’s what reasonable care is. So, if an owner fails to do one of these things, and it results in an injury to an invitee, the owner becomes liable for those injuries.

The important thing to remember here is that sometimes, a host is simply in a better position to make sure a guest isn’t injured than the guest himself is. We have all warned our own guests of that drop-off from the kitchen to the living room, or to make sure to grab on to that hand rail when going into the basement. The same idea applies to business owners. Ultimately, the owner of the premises is in a better position to prevent injuries than anybody else.