The airport population can be the equivalent of a small town, only lacking the slower pace of life. People at the airport are almost always in a rush, always distracted and rarely just happy to be there.
Given that, it’s no surprise people get injured at the airport. Identifying when negligence has occurred and who’s liable is critical to the success of your personal injury case.
Injuries can range from a slip-and-fall in the Food Court to hurting your back while lifting luggage to something inside the plane itself. The circumstances of your injury determines if you have a case.
The core element of a personal injury claim is negligence, the legal doctrine which requires a reasonable standard of care. The injury cannot be your fault—lifting heavy bags would be an obvious example, but this also includes a collision where you aren’t looking where you’re going.
But what if you were walking through the Food Court—maybe a little distracted, but nothing out of the ordinary for an airport—and you slip on spilled coffee?
The legal doctrine of foreseeabilty determines whether there was negligence. If the spill happened just a few minutes before, it may be determined the staff did not have time to respond.
But what if the manager was aware of the spill and told staff to take care of the current customer rush before cleaning it up? In this case, it’s more likely the accident will be seen as foreseeable, and the airport as negligent.
Multiple parties may be liable in an airport injury case. In the case of the Food Court example, it’s the airport itself, because the injury occurred in the common areas of the facility. If you’re injured walking onto the airplane because of a wet walkway, the individual airline is your target. If you file against the wrong party the case will be dismissed and you may run out of time to file a new claim.