Yakima Premises
Liability Lawyers

If you suffer an injury because of a mistake that another person made regarding property maintenance or visitor safety, you have the right to seek a personal injury judgment. Our Yakima premises liability lawyers will stand by your side throughout the entire case. We will work toward helping you recover lost wages and medical costs, while also trying to obtain damages for pain and suffering. When accidents occur on someone else’s property, proving the negligence of the property owner can be a challenging process. It often involves relying on testimony from witnesses and from you to determine how the accident occurred. The property owner may clean up the area or make repairs quickly after the accident, making it difficult to figure out what happened a few days later. Police may not investigate the accident because it occurred on private property, so you may not have a detailed report like you would receive after a car crash. You can rely on our premises liability attorneys in Yakima to investigate the accident and figure out exactly what happened. We will work to show that the property owner knew, or should have known, about the dangerous situation and failed to warn visitors or to fix the issue in a reasonable amount of time. We have more than four decades of collective experience among our team of attorneys, and we will put that experience to work for you. For a free review of your case, call us at 509-895-7373. The premises liability laws in Washington State can be confusing for victims. You may be unsure whether you have a case. This is understandable, as you’ve hopefully never been in a premises liability accident before. Our Yakima premises liability lawyers deal with cases like this on a regular basis, giving us the ability to walk you through the entire process and to help you determine whether you have a legitimate claim. We will provide advice for how we believe you should proceed, but the final decision will rest with you. Some of the types of accidents involving the negligence of another party that fall under premises liability include:

• Swimming pool accidents
• Unsecured animal attacks and bites
• Slip and fall accidents
• Inadequate security resulting in assaults
• Preventable fires and explosions
• Preventable exposure to toxic chemicals
• Structural failures in a building
• Icy sidewalks and steps
• Failure to clean spills from walkways
• Retaining wall structural failure
• Unsafe flooring, such as loose rugs or torn carpeting.

If you suffer an injury after slipping and falling on someone else’s property, you have to prove that you had a right to be on the property before you can make a premises liability claim. Someone who is trespassing and slips on an icy patio does not typically have the right to file a claim in Washington State. But if you are on the property legally, either through a direct invitation or as a member of the public who naturally has an informal invitation to go into a business or government building, you may be eligible to file a claim. Our premises liability attorneys in Yakima can help you prove that your injuries and the accident occurred because of a negligent act on the part of the property owner. If the property owner could not have known about the dangerous situation or did not have a reasonable amount of time to fix the issue or to warn visitors, you may have a difficult time winning your claim. Premises liability cases have quite a few nuances to them, meaning the individual facts that led to your particular accident play a key role in determining whether you can win a claim. To discuss your case in a no-obligation review, call us today at 509-895-7373. You certainly have the right to try to settle a case like this without hiring our premises liability attorneys. The insurance company may even offer you a quick settlement payment, which may be tempting to accept. However, our premises liability law firm knows that accepting the insurer’s first offer is a risky decision on your part. Once you agree to a settlement with the insurer, you cannot come back later and try to request more money because you discovered a new injury. Our team at Montoya Hinckley believes it is important for victims in slip and fall cases or in other types of premises liability cases to wait to settle with the insurer until the victim has a full diagnosis of injuries from a doctor. The doctor should be able to give you an opinion on what kinds of long-term health problems you may have from your injuries, as well as what kind of health care costs you may have going forward. With this information in hand, our Yakima premises liability lawyers will be able to estimate a fair amount we should request from the insurance company on your behalf. We know how time consuming it can be for victims to try to represent themselves in premises liability cases. Not only are victims trying to recover from their injuries and figure out if and when they can return to work, but they may be receiving multiple phone calls from insurance company representatives. The insurer may ask the same questions repeatedly or try to bully you into accepting a settlement offer. It can be difficult to answer the insurer’s questions when you are taking pain medication or if you suffered a brain injury in the accident. When you hire our team to represent you, we will take over all correspondence with the insurance company. We want to remove stress from your life, giving you the time you need to focus on your family and your recovery. Some of the specific items we can help you with include:

• Tracking and collecting your medical bills
• Coordinating with your health insurance company
• Tracking your lost wages while you recover
• Estimating your future lost wages
• Speaking with your doctors to determine your long-term health needs and to estimate future medical costs
• Calculating an amount that is fair compensation for pain and suffering that you have endured
• Filing all paperwork required to keep your case within Washington State’s three-year statute of limitations.

After you suffer an injury in an accident on someone else’s property, you may have significant pain and may be unable to continue to enjoy the activities that you did before the accident. You may be unable to work. It may feel like everyone else’s life is moving on, while you are stuck fighting through your recovery. We do not want you to ever feel alone. Trust that the team at Montoya Hinckley will always be available to answer your questions and discuss your situation. We will stand by your side until the claim settles. If the injury occurred at a friend’s home or at a business that you visit often, you may feel bad about filing a claim. It is important to remember that you did not do anything wrong to cause this accident. The property owner owed you a duty of care to keep you as safe as possible during your visit. The property owner almost certainly made an honest mistake and feels terrible about your injuries, but the guilty feeling doesn’t pay for your medical bills. It also may help you to remember that the property owner almost certainly has insurance to provide protection in a premises liability case. By filing a claim, you will have the chance to have your financial losses reimbursed, while the property owner can rely on liability insurance to protect his or her financial situation. At Montoya Hinckley, we set ourselves apart from other Yakima premises liability lawyers by spending time with our clients and learning about their stories. We know that no two people have the same story about their injuries and about their premises liability accidents. The differences from case to case may be subtle, but they are extremely important in helping us formulate a strategy that is specifically geared toward winning your claim. By learning more about your family and your concerns for your life as you recover, we are better able to serve your needs in your personal injury case. During negotiations with the insurance company, we need to be able to speak for you. By taking the time to learn about you, we can be certain we are accurately representing your interests. We will be on the same page as you in terms of our goals for the outcome of the claim. Ultimately, the goal for our premises liability law firm is to help you win the best possible settlement for your injuries. You did not do anything wrong, and you should not have to suffer financially because another party committed a negligent act by failing to maintain property safely. We will seek to help you settle your case or win a judgment for wages you cannot earn while you attempt to recover, as well as any medical bills you accumulate. If you will have long-term health problems, disabilities, or disfigurement related to the property accident, you also deserve a settlement or judgment that compensates you for these hardships. Insurance companies do not always treat victims fairly when calculating damages for long-term health problems, disability, or disfigurement amounts. Trust that our Yakima premises liability lawyers will work as hard as we can to help you receive a settlement or judgment that reflects what your life will look like in the future. Call Montoya Hinckley as soon as possible at 509-895-7373 for a free case review. You do not have to worry about being able to afford our services. If we take your case, on a contingency fee basis, we do not collect any fees at the time you hire us.