The Role of Surveillance Footage in Slip and Fall Claims

Slips and falls are a common source of injury in New York City, particularly when property owners are negligent in the upkeep of their premises. Surveillance footage can be valuable evidence when they capture these accidents on video.

Surveillance Footage as Crucial Evidence

Surveillance footage can provide critical evidence to prove fault and causation of your injuries. Footage can prove that you fell on the property, which can help you fight back if the property owner denies that you actually fell there. Surveillance footage can also corroborate the injuries you’ve suffered by confirming that you fell as you described. For example, video footage showing that you landed on your shoulder could substantiate your claim that you injured your rotator cuff.

More importantly, surveillance footage can help prove the property or business owner’s fault for the accident if it captured the hazardous conditions that caused you to slip, such as a puddle on the floor or a patch of ice. Video footage can also show what created the hazard. The footage might suggest the property or business owner knew about the hazardous condition (such as employees walking past the condition) or prove that the condition existed long enough that the owner would have discovered it through reasonable maintenance checks.

Depending on the circumstances of the accident, the footage you use as evidence could come from any of the following:

• Commercial surveillance cameras owned and operated by the business where the slip and fall accident occurred
• Municipal surveillance systems/CCTV footage cameras
• Traffic cameras that also capture video footage of the at-fault property owner’s premises

Obtaining Surveillance Footage

Securing surveillance footage of the slip and fall accident scene can prove incredibly challenging. Property and business owners might not willingly hand over their surveillance cameras’ footage to a customer or property visitor simply because they’ve asked for the footage. Instead, you may need a slip and fall lawyer in your corner to help secure this potentially valuable evidence.

Obtaining surveillance footage begins with reporting the accident to the business or property owner. Reporting the accident will inform the owner that they should review their surveillance footage and preserve copies of any relevant footage. However, you and your legal counsel must act quickly to preserve and secure a copy of the footage. Many property and business owners regularly delete or overwrite footage in the ordinary course of business, absent any need to preserve it. That’s why it’s important that you consult with an experienced slip and fall attorney as soon after the accident as possible.

Contact an Experienced NYC Slip and Fall Lawyer Today

If you’ve suffered a slip and fall accident on somebody else’s property, any footage that captured the accident could prove valuable to your case. But getting this footage could prove difficult without the help of an experienced personal injury lawyer. Contact David Resnick & Associates, PC today for a free, no-obligation consultation to discuss your options for pursuing compensation with our firm’s NYC slip and fall attorney.

Author: David Resnick

Founder of David Resnick & Associates, P.C., a New York personal injury law firm in charge of providing exceptional and personal service to each of our clients in various areas including car accidents, slip and fall, wrongful death, construction accidents, and premises liability. David Resnick founded the firm in 1998 after working in large law firms where he saw a need for greater client communication and more personal care.