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Michigan Slip and Fall Lawyer
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A fall on someone else’s property can upend your life in seconds. One moment you are walking through a grocery store or down an apartment stairwell, and the next you are facing an injury, time away from work, and medical bills that arrive long before any settlement. The property owner’s insurance company may already be calling, and you are left wondering whether you even have a claim.
The days right after a fall are when the evidence is freshest, even though that is the last thing on your mind while you are hurting. Surveillance video gets recorded over within days, warning signs disappear, and witnesses move on. The adjuster who reaches out early is working to protect the insurance company’s bottom line, not your recovery.
As a Michigan slip and fall lawyer team, we represent people hurt by dangerous conditions on property throughout Michigan’s lower peninsula, from Metro Detroit through Oakland, Wayne, and Macomb counties. Our attorneys investigate how the fall happened, preserve the evidence the insurer hopes you will lose, and apply the 2023 change in Michigan slip and fall law that gives many injury victims a stronger claim than they were once told. When a property owner’s insurer refuses to treat a claim fairly, Harris Altman, PC is prepared to file a lawsuit, and a free consultation through our contact page costs you nothing while you decide what to do next.
Why Harris Altman, PC Handles Your Slip and Fall Case Differently
Choosing who to trust with your claim is one of the first real decisions you make after getting hurt, and it is a hard one when you are already managing pain and bills. Most people want the same things from a premises liability lawyer in Michigan: straight answers about whether they have a case, a firm that returns calls, and someone willing to take the claim the distance if the insurer will not deal fairly. That is the standard we hold ourselves to for injured people across Michigan’s lower peninsula.
The attorneys at Harris Altman, PC have built a personal injury practice on two commitments: thorough preparation and real accessibility for the people they represent. We handle a slip and fall claim from the first insurance paperwork, keep clients informed as the case moves, and are prepared to file a lawsuit when a property owner’s insurer will not resolve a claim fairly. That approach lets you focus on healing while the legal work is handled for you.
Our Attorneys and Their Recognition
Bradley B. Harris holds an AV Rating from Martindale-Hubbell, the top mark in a peer-review system that measures legal ability and ethical standards. He has been named to Super Lawyers since 2012, to Michigan’s Top 100 Trial Lawyers by the National Trial Lawyers since 2012, and to the Leading Lawyers list since 2016.
Brett D. Altman began his career at Cozen O’Connor, a large national firm, where he handled complex litigation before joining the practice. He has been recognized as a Top 40 Under 40 Litigation Lawyer in Michigan by the American Society of Legal Advocates since 2016, named among Michigan’s Top Lawyers in Personal Injury since 2015, and listed as a Michigan Rising Star by Super Lawyers from 2014 to 2017.
John Cusmano was named a Super Lawyers Rising Star in 2023 and recognized by Super Lawyers in the appellate category in 2025. Together, the attorneys bring courtroom experience and recognized credentials to premises liability work for clients throughout the lower peninsula.
Client Testimonials
“My legal team was thorough and made sure I was well-informed about every step of this process. Additionally, whenever I had questions or concerns, my legal team was easily accessible.” — Stephanie G.
“I would like to say thank you for taking my case and communicating with me every step through the entire process. I appreciate what you all have done. Thank you and I have recommended your company to family and friends.” — K. Daniel
“From the very first call to your firm, I’ve had nothing but positive experiences. Mr. Brett Altman, thank you for having compassion, being down to earth and yet professional at the same time. Thank you for doing a grand job on my behalf!” — Andrea M.
Meet Your Michigan Slip and Fall Lawyers
What Makes a Property Owner Legally Responsible in Michigan
After a fall, the question that matters most to you is a simple one: was someone else responsible for the condition that hurt you? In Michigan, a property owner can be held responsible for a slip and fall accident when four things are true.
- A dangerous condition existed on the property, such as a wet floor, ice, a broken stair, or poor lighting.
- The owner knew about the condition, or should have known about it through reasonable care.
- The owner failed to fix the hazard or warn visitors about it.
- The injured person was lawfully on the property at the time of the fall.
These four points come down to a legal idea called the duty of care. A property owner has a responsibility to keep the premises reasonably safe for the people allowed to be there, and a slip and fall claim turns on whether that responsibility was met.
Proving it usually means showing that a hazard existed and that the owner had a fair chance to find and fix it before the fall happened. Picture a spill that sat in a store aisle for an hour with no cleanup and no warning sign. If a customer slips on it, the length of time and the absence of any warning can point to each of these elements.
The Duty Property Owners Owe Their Visitors
The level of care a property owner owes depends on why a visitor is there. A customer in a store or a tenant in an apartment building is owed the highest level of care, because the owner benefits from their presence and is expected to inspect for hazards and address them. A social guest is owed a more limited duty, and someone on the property without permission is owed the least.
The setting often shapes a claim. A grocery store is expected to check its floors on a regular schedule, a landlord is responsible for safe common areas like stairwells and parking lots, and a business that sees heavy foot traffic is held to what a reasonable operator would do to keep people safe. As a slip and fall attorney in Michigan reviews a case, the focus falls on maintenance practices, inspection records, and how long the dangerous condition was present before someone got hurt.
Where Slip and Fall Accidents Happen Most Often in Michigan
Falls can happen anywhere, but certain places see them again and again. Grocery and retail stores, restaurants, apartment complexes, hospitals, hotels, parking lots, sidewalks, and government buildings are common settings for a slip and fall accident in Michigan. Whether a fall happens at a store in Oakland County, an apartment complex in Wayne County, or a parking lot in Macomb County, the same legal questions apply.
Michigan winters add their own risk. Ice and snow cause a large share of falls each year, and the way courts treat those hazards is one of the areas most affected by the 2023 change in the law.
Where the fall happened still matters, because the type of property affects which duty of care applies and which notice rules come into play. A fall in a private store follows one set of rules, while a fall on public property carries strict deadlines that can end a claim before it starts.
Slip and Falls on Government Property in Michigan
When a fall happens in a public building, Michigan law adds a short and unforgiving deadline. A person injured by a dangerous or defective condition in a public building must serve written notice on the responsible government agency within 120 days of the injury, a requirement set out in MCL 691.1406. Missing that window can bar the claim no matter how serious the injury.
Claims against the State of Michigan come with their own deadline. For a personal injury claim against the state, a written claim or notice must be filed with the Court of Claims within 6 months of the event, under MCL 600.6431. Because these deadlines run much faster than the ordinary filing period, it helps to talk with a lawyer quickly when a fall happens on public property such as a school, a library, a courthouse, or a municipal office.
Common Injuries From a Michigan Slip and Fall Accident
A fall from standing height can cause far more harm than people expect. Traumatic brain injuries and concussions, broken bones and fractures of the wrist, hip, or ankle, back and spinal cord injuries, knee injuries, and shoulder injuries are all common results of a slip and fall, and many require surgery, hospitalization, and months of treatment.
Older adults face a higher risk of serious harm, and a broken hip or a head injury can change how a person lives for the rest of their life. Some of these injuries heal with time, while others leave lasting limits on work, movement, and independence. The harder the recovery, the more a fall reaches into a person’s finances and future.
Why Severity of Injury Matters to Your Claim
The seriousness of an injury shapes the value of a slip and fall claim. A fall that leads to significant medical treatment, lost wages, and long-term limitations carries different weight than a minor bruise, because the losses are larger and last longer.
Strong documentation supports that value. It can help to keep records from the day of the accident forward, including emergency room visits, follow-up appointments, time missed from work, and the everyday tasks that have become harder since the fall. The clearer that record is, the harder it becomes for an insurer to argue that an injury is not as serious as it truly is.
How the 2023 Michigan Supreme Court Ruling Changed Slip and Fall Cases
For more than twenty years, many Michigan slip and fall claims ended before they reached a jury. Under a rule known as the open and obvious doctrine, a property owner often owed no duty at all when a hazard was considered open and obvious, which let defense lawyers ask courts to dismiss cases at an early stage. A patch of ice or a pothole in a parking lot was frequently enough to end a claim outright.
That changed on July 28, 2023. In Kandil-Elsayed v. F & E Oil, Inc., the Michigan Supreme Court overruled its earlier decision in Lugo v. Ameritech and held that the open and obvious nature of a hazard is no longer part of the duty question.
Instead, that same fact is now considered when a jury weighs whether the owner breached a duty of care and how much fault, if any, belongs to the injured person. The court also set aside the older special aspects test that had limited recovery in many cases.
What This Means for Injury Victims
This shift may give injury victims more room to be heard. Because open and obvious is no longer a complete defense at the duty stage, fewer claims are dismissed before trial, and more cases can reach a jury that weighs the facts.
The change does not make every claim a winner. An injured person must still prove that a dangerous condition existed and that the owner knew or should have known about it. People who were once told their claim had no value may have different options today, and a review of the facts can show whether the ruling helps a particular case. This is also one reason many people ask whether they need a lawyer for a slip and fall in Michigan, since the analysis after 2023 turns on details that are easy to miss.
What to Do After a Slip and Fall in Michigan
The steps taken in the first hours after a fall can shape everything that follows. While your health comes first, a few simple actions can protect a future claim.
- Report the fall to the property owner, store manager, or landlord, and ask that an incident report be created.
- Photograph the hazard and your injuries right away, before anything is cleaned up or repaired.
- Collect the names and contact information of anyone who saw the fall.
- Seek medical attention even when an injury seems minor, since some serious conditions take time to appear.
- Preserve the clothing and footwear you were wearing, exactly as they are.
Each of these steps captures evidence while it still exists. The sooner they happen, the harder it becomes for an insurer to argue that the fall was not serious or not the property owner’s responsibility.
Why You Should Avoid Speaking With the Insurer First
The property owner’s insurer may contact you quickly, sometimes within a day. The adjuster’s job is to protect the insurance company’s finances, not to look out for your recovery.
You are not required to give a recorded statement before you have had a chance to get legal advice. Insurers may ask questions designed to minimize the value of an injury or to suggest the fall was your fault, and an early conversation that feels harmless can quietly weaken a claim before you understand what it is worth. A short delay to gather facts and advice rarely hurts a claim, while a rushed recorded statement often does.
How Michigan’s Comparative Negligence Law Affects Your Case
Property owners and their insurers often argue that the injured person was distracted, was not watching where they were going, or should have seen the hazard. Michigan law has a rule for sorting out shared fault, and it can affect how much a person recovers.
Under MCL 600.2959, a court reduces a person’s damages by their share of fault for the fall. If an injured person is found more than 50% at fault, they cannot recover non-economic damages such as pain and suffering, although reduced economic damages like medical bills and lost wages may still be available.
For example, a person found 20% at fault would have their recovery reduced by that share, while a person found 70% at fault would lose pain and suffering damages entirely. How fault gets assigned can matter as much as the injury itself.
What Evidence Strengthens a Slip and Fall Claim in Michigan
Good evidence answers the questions a jury will ask about fault and responsibility. Photographs, surveillance footage, witness statements, maintenance and inspection logs, incident reports, and medical records all help show what happened and who is responsible.
Time works against this evidence. Surveillance footage is often recorded over within days, witnesses forget details, and a hazard gets repaired before anyone documents it. Acting quickly is one of the most direct ways to keep a slip and fall claim strong.
What Compensation May Be Available in a Michigan Slip and Fall Claim
A fair recovery accounts for both the bills you can count and the losses that are harder to put a number on. Slip and fall compensation in Michigan generally falls into two categories.
- Economic damages cover medical expenses, lost wages, future medical care, and reduced future earning capacity.
- Non-economic damages cover pain and suffering, disability, loss of enjoyment of life, and disfigurement.
Unlike medical malpractice and product liability cases, Michigan does not cap non-economic damages in an ordinary premises liability claim. That means the lasting human cost of a serious fall, including pain that does not show up on a bill, can be reflected in the value of a claim. For someone facing surgery, a long recovery, or a permanent limitation, those non-economic losses often account for much of a claim’s value.
What Factors Affect the Value of Your Claim
No two falls are the same, and several factors shape what a claim is worth. The severity of the injuries, the extent of medical treatment, how long a person is kept from work, how clear the property owner’s liability is, the available insurance coverage, and the quality of the evidence all play a part.
Because each case is different, a single conversation can give you a clearer picture than a general estimate ever could. A free consultation through our contact page can help you understand what your slip and fall claim may involve, with no cost and no obligation.
How Long You Have to File a Slip and Fall Lawsuit in Michigan
For most slip and fall cases in Michigan, you have three years from the date of the accident to file a lawsuit. That deadline is set by MCL 600.5805, and a court will almost always refuse to hear a case filed after it passes, no matter how strong the claim.
One point catches people off guard: the deadline is met by filing a lawsuit in court, not by opening an insurance claim or negotiating with an adjuster. Some situations cut the time sharply, including falls on public property, which carry the much shorter notice deadlines described earlier, 120 days for a dangerous public building and 6 months for a claim against the state. Acting early does more than protect the deadline, because it also preserves surveillance footage, witness memories, and the physical evidence a trip and fall lawyer in Michigan needs to build a strong case.
A few situations can pause or extend the three-year deadline, such as when the injured person is a minor. Even then, waiting is rarely in your interest, because the proof a claim depends on tends to fade long before any deadline arrives.
Start Your Michigan Slip and Fall Case With Harris Altman, PC
After a serious fall, the window to protect a claim is shorter than most people expect, and the property owner’s insurer is already working on its own timeline. We investigate Michigan premises liability claims, preserve the evidence that decides them, and file a lawsuit when a property owner’s insurer will not resolve a claim fairly. Before surveillance footage is recorded over or a deadline passes, a free consultation can tell you whether you have a slip and fall claim worth pursuing and what it could involve.
Call Harris Altman, PC at (248) 540-3100 or reach us through our contact form to get started. You pay no attorney fee unless we recover compensation in your case.
