In Atlanta, there are a lot of airport premises liability cases. As Hartsfield-Jackson airport is the busiest airport in the world, a lot can go wrong to cause people to suffer from injuries, including injuries sustained from boarding or exiting aircraft, escalator falls, elevator injuries, and slip and falls. Even though the City of Atlanta owns the airport, there are numerous entities that could be responsible for an injury that occurs at the airports. Responsible parties for an airport injury could range from airlines to third-party airport management companies to cleaning crews to elevator maintenance companies or even restaurants and other retail stores inside the airport. When bringing a case that arises from an injury at the airport, it can be difficult to determine which party is responsible. Thus, finding and preserving evidence at the beginning of a case is vital to the success of a claim.
If you are injured at the Atlanta airport, do the following at the scene:
- Report the injury immediately.
- Obtain an incident report.
- Take photographs or videos.
- Call 911.
- Accept medical treatment from paramedics or other emergency responders.
- Obtain witness names and contact information.
After the incident, be sure to follow up with immediate and consistent medical care. If you are injured, it is important to be under the care of a medical professional in order to prove your injuries. No treatment or a delay or “gap” in treatment could harm your case.
It is important to note that a person who is injured on business property, such as the airport, is not automatically entitled to recover compensation for those injuries. Like any other premises liability case, proving up an airport case requires the claimant or injured party to show that the at-fault party failed to act reasonably to protect the claimant from a dangerous condition and that failure caused the claimant to become injured. Additionally, the injured party must have been exercising care when the injury occurred and must not have knowledge of the dangerous condition.
Dangerous conditions include foreign substances (for example, spilled water, waxy floors, misplaced items or equipment) or “static defects”, which are unsafe conditions that are often permanent in nature and due to poor design (examples are steps that are too high or too low, steep ramps, or a hole in the floor). When in an airport, any number of things, from spilled liquids to ramps that are too steep, could be dangerous conditions, and any number of companies could be responsible for either causing the dangerous conditions or failing to fix the dangerous conditions.
As you can see, when someone is hurt in an airport, making a claim involves complex factual and legal issues. Retaining an attorney early on to assist you with an airport or airline injury case allows an early investigation into the facts of what happened and who is responsible and could make a big difference in the outcome of your case. If you or a loved one has been injured as a result of an airport or airline incident, call the Davis Injury Firm at (404) 647-0722 to speak to an attorney.