Florida Injury Lawyer Blog
Halloween is a unique holiday in that it usually involves multiple visitors to your home. Whether you’re hosting a Halloween party or event, or are simply having trick-or-treaters arriving at your door, Halloween means plenty more visitors to your Miami home, and that can put you at increased risk for a Miami premises liability lawsuit. If any trick-or-treaters or visitors to your home fall or injure themselves, you could be held liable. Businesses, especially, need to take steps to ensure that they are not subject to Miami premises liability claims. There are many ways that you can keep your business premises or home safer this Halloween season:
1) Don’t sacrifice safety for creepiness. At this time of year, many stores are filled with fun and novel decorations for your home and business. While many of these decorations are fun and safe, some are not. Any decoration that affects the lighting of your property or could possibly create a trip and fall hazard needs to be avoided. Before buying any decorations, consider carefully whether they are safe.
2) Avoid fire hazards and Miami burn injury hazards. Open bonfires, creepy candles on your mantelpiece, and candles inside of jack-o’-lanterns all pose a fire hazard and a burn hazard, especially for young children. Rather than using candles, use electric candles that do not have an open flame. Avoid bonfires entirely. In addition, carefully consider before using dry ice at your party. Many people use dry ice in order to create a creepy fog effect for their Halloween punch or home decoration. Unfortunately, if any of your guests touch the dry ice directly, they are subject to severe burn injury. Use a small fog machine instead, to create mist and fog if you need it.
3) Make sure that there are no trip and fall hazards on your property. Unfortunately, many Halloween decorations can also lead to Miami trip and fall and slip and fall accidents. Overgrown grasses, fake tombstones in the yard, and even a row of pumpkins along your walkway can pose a trip and fall hazard for trick-or-treaters and other visitors. Make sure that your property remains well lit during Halloween, and remove any obstacles that could allow someone to trip. Make sure that you mow your grass shortly before Halloween, to ensure that it also does not hide any trip and fall hazard.
4) Avoid any motion-activated creepy displays. These can startle someone excessively and cause an accident. If you do really want to have a haunted-house like effect at your home, you must post plenty of signs about the potential risks (including the risk of sudden noise and movement). Consider keeping the creepier effects indoors, where you and your family can enjoy them without posing a risk to visitors and trick or treaters.
If you are injured on someone’s property due to negligence or recklessness, contact the Flaxman Law Group to arrange for a free, no obligation consultation to determine whether you have a case. The compassionate and experienced legal team at the Flaxman Law Group have already helped thousands of personal injury victims in Miami, Homestead, Hollywood, and throughout southern Florida.