Proving a Slip-and-Fall Accident Was Staged

If you own a small grocery or convenience store and you had noticed a patron walking around inside your establishment, looking rather shifty, and then they claim to have fallen down and gotten hurt, you may be the victim of a staged slip-and-fall accident. Unfortunately, some people pretend to get hurt inside a store or on a public walkway, falsifying information so they can collect benefits through insurance and their employer as a result. Here are some ways to prove that an accident that happened within your store was not because of negligence on your part.

Collect Witnesses

To find out who was present in the store at the time of the incident, go through credit card receipts to get a list of names of people who had made purchases. Use this information to make a list of addresses and phone numbers so you can contact the people to see if they can be a witness if the slip-and-fall incident goes to court. Ask your employees if there were any people in the store whom they personally knew so they can contact them for the same reason.

Check Footage

If you have surveillance cameras inside your store, pull the footage and look through it to see if there are any telltale signs that prove the person claiming to fall had pretended to get hurt. You may see the person lie down without falling at all. They might pull something off of a shelf and lay it in the aisle to use as a prop that caused them to trip. If you find any information on the tapes at all, your lawyer will be able to use it in court to show to the jury and judge, possibly clearing you of all charges.

Do Safety Checks

Call in a safety company to do an evaluation of the interior of your store to look for areas where things are not as safe as they can be. Use the report they give to you to prove that there was no reason for someone to fall in the area where the incident occurred. You can also use any negative information on the report to help make repairs to areas needing more work in keeping customers safe.

Hire a Detective

If you hire a private investigator to help you with your case, you will have the benefit in having surveillance done on the person who claimed to get hurt. If they are seen walking around as if they didn't become injured at all, this information will come in handy in proving that they are fraudulently collecting insurance money when they didn't sustain an injury necessitating payout.

Additionally, a lawyer like True Guarnieri Ayer LLP can help you with all aspects of your case.