When you're out strolling at The Mall at Johnson City or along the West Walnut Street Corridor on a regular day, sustaining injuries because of unsafe conditions would be the last thing you'd expect, but it can happen. And when it does, the resulting injuries can leave you facing unexpected medical bills and physical and emotional hardship.
When a property owner's carelessness causes an injury, Tennessee law allows the injured person to hold the owner accountable, but these cases turn on proving the owner knew or should have known about the hazard.
Fox and Farmer represents people hurt on dangerous property across Washington County and the Tri-Cities. Reach out to our firm so we can help prove your premises liability claim in Johnson City.
Premises liability is the area of law that holds property owners and occupiers responsible when a dangerous condition on their property injures someone. The core principle is that those who control property have a duty to keep it reasonably safe for people who come onto it lawfully, and to warn of hazards that are not obvious.
This duty applies to businesses, landlords, and other property owners across the many settings where people are injured by unsafe conditions, from stores and restaurants to apartment complexes and parking lots. The duty is one of reasonable care, not a guarantee of safety, as established under Tennessee negligence law.
A property owner is not automatically responsible every time someone is hurt on their property. The question is whether the owner acted reasonably in maintaining the property and addressing hazards.
An owner who knew of a dangerous condition and did nothing, or who failed to discover and fix a hazard that reasonable care would have revealed, has breached the duty. An owner who could not reasonably have known of a hazard, or who took reasonable steps to address it, generally has not. Where a particular situation falls along that line is the heart of a premises liability case.
The most important element in most premises liability claims is notice, meaning whether the property owner knew or should have known about the dangerous condition.
Tennessee law requires the injured person to show that the owner either created the hazard, knew about it and failed to address it, or should have discovered it through reasonable care. Without notice, even a genuine hazard may not support a claim, because the owner cannot be faulted for failing to fix a danger they had no reason to know about.
Notice comes in two forms. Actual notice means the owner truly knew of the hazard, such as when an employee saw a spill or a complaint was made about a broken step. Constructive notice means the hazard existed long enough that the owner should have discovered it through reasonable inspection, even if no one actually noticed it. Proving constructive notice turns on how long the dangerous condition was present.
A spill that had been on the floor for an hour supports a constructive notice argument far better than one that appeared moments before the fall. Because notice decides these cases, gathering evidence about what the owner knew and how long the hazard existed is central to building a premises claim.
Tennessee's modified comparative fault rule governs premises liability claims, meaning an injured person can recover only if found less than 50 percent at fault, with compensation reduced by their share of the blame. The rule comes from the Tennessee Supreme Court's decision in McIntyre v. Balentine.
In premises cases, property owners and their insurers may argue that the injured person was partly to blame, contending that they should have seen and avoided the hazard, were not watching where they were going, or were in a place they should not have been. These arguments matter because every percentage point of fault assigned to the injured person reduces the recovery, and reaching the 50 percent line eliminates it.
The analysis involves whether the hazard was open and obvious, since a danger that a reasonable person would have seen and avoided can shift fault toward the injured person. However, Tennessee law recognizes that even somewhat obvious hazards can support a claim where the owner should have anticipated the harm.
Countering the effort to blame the injured person requires showing that the hazard was not reasonably avoidable, that the injured person was acting normally, and that the owner's failure was the real cause. The one-year deadline under Tennessee Code Annotated section 28-3-104 applies, running from the date of the injury.
Premises injuries in the Johnson City area arise across a wide range of properties where people shop, work, live, and visit. Retail stores and the busy commercial corridors like State of Franklin Road and North Roan Street see injuries from spills, debris, poorly maintained floors, and hazards in parking lots.
Restaurants and grocery stores present slip hazards from spills and tracked-in water, particularly in the wet months. These business settings generate many premises claims because the high volume of customers requires hazards to be identified and addressed quickly to keep the property safe.
Other settings produce their own hazards. Apartment complexes and rental properties, including housing for the large student population around East Tennessee State University, can have dangerous stairways, inadequate lighting, broken walkways, and security failures that lead to injuries.
Parking lots and garages present trip hazards, poor lighting, and surface defects. Hotels and other places that host the public owe their guests a duty of reasonable care. Even private homes can give rise to premises claims when a guest is injured by a hazard the homeowner should have addressed.
Each type of property has its own expectations and common dangers, and identifying the setting and the specific hazard is the first step in evaluating a premises claim.
Building a premises case requires evidence on two fronts: the existence of the hazard and the owner's notice of it. The hazard itself is best documented immediately, with photographs of the dangerous condition before it is cleaned up or repaired.
Once an owner addresses the hazard, the evidence of what caused the injury can disappear. Photographs of a spill, a broken step, a poorly lit stairwell, or a surface defect, taken at the time, are the most persuasive proof that the condition was dangerous.
The notice element usually requires other evidence. Surveillance footage from the property can show how long a hazard was present before the injury, which is powerful evidence of constructive notice. That footage is overwritten within days or weeks if it is not preserved through a prompt demand.
The property's maintenance and inspection records can reveal whether the owner met its own obligations to find and fix hazards. Witness accounts, including those of employees and other visitors, can establish what the owner knew and when.
Incident reports the business has prepared can be important as well. Because so much of this evidence is in the owner's control and subject to routine loss, moving quickly to preserve it is decisive in a premises case.
Tennessee allows a premises liability victim to recover both economic and non-economic damages. Economic damages cover the measurable losses: medical expenses, future treatment, lost wages, and reduced earning capacity where the injury limits future work.
These are supported by records and, for lasting injuries, by a professional assessment of long-term needs. The severity of premises injuries varies widely, from minor harm to catastrophic injuries from a fall down stairs or a serious incident, and the recovery reflects that range.
Non-economic damages compensate for pain, suffering, and the loss of the ability to live as before. Tennessee caps non-economic damages at $750,000 (Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-39-102), or $1 million for catastrophic injuries, and lifts the cap when the at-fault party was intoxicated or committed a felony. Economic losses are never capped.
The value of a premises claim depends on the severity of the injury and on the strength of the notice evidence, since a claim with clear proof that the owner knew of the hazard stands on much firmer ground than one where notice is in doubt. As with any serious personal injury, settling before the full extent of the harm is known risks leaving uncompensated losses, which makes patience and thorough documentation important to a fair result.
One of the most common defenses in a premises case is the argument that the hazard was open and obvious, meaning the injured person should have seen and avoided it. Property owners and their insurers frequently raise this argument.
If a danger was apparent that a reasonable person would have avoided it, the owner may argue they had no duty to warn of it or that the injured person's own carelessness caused the harm. The argument is aimed directly at shifting fault onto the injured person under Tennessee's comparative fault rule.
Tennessee courts (following Coln v. City of Savannah) hold that an obvious hazard is not an automatic bar where the owner should have anticipated harm anyway. Examples are when the hazard is in a place people must pass through or when circumstances distract attention from it.
The question becomes whether the owner acted reasonably in light of the foreseeable risk, not simply whether the hazard was visible. Meeting the open and obvious argument requires showing why the owner still bore responsibility, which turns on the specific circumstances of how and where the injury occurred. Handling this defense properly is central to many premises cases.
The duty a property owner owes is one of reasonable care, but what counts as reasonable varies with the type of property and its use. A business that invites the public onto its property for the business's own benefit, such as a store or restaurant, is expected to take active steps to keep its premises safe for customers, including regular inspections to find and address hazards. The volume of people and the commercial purpose raise the expectation of vigilance.
A landlord owes duties to tenants and their guests regarding the safety of the property, particularly common areas under the landlord's control, including maintaining stairways, walkways, lighting, and security. A homeowner owes a duty to guests, though the expectations differ from those of a commercial operator.
The nature of the property shapes both what the owner should have done and what the injured person can reasonably expect. Identifying the type of property, the relationship between the owner and the injured person, and the standard of care that applies is part of evaluating a premises claim accurately. The same hazard may carry different implications depending on the setting in which it appeared.
One important category of premises liability deserves separate attention, because it involves harm caused not by a physical hazard but by a failure to protect against foreseeable criminal acts. Negligent security claims arise when a property owner fails to provide reasonable security measures and a person is harmed by a criminal attack that those measures could have prevented.
Apartment complexes, parking lots and garages, hotels, and businesses that should anticipate the risk of crime on their premises can be held responsible when inadequate lighting, broken locks, absent security personnel, or other failures contribute to a foreseeable assault or robbery.
These claims turn on foreseeability and reasonableness. The question is whether the owner knew or should have known of a risk of criminal activity, shown through prior incidents on or near the property, and whether the owner took reasonable steps to protect the people lawfully on the premises.
A property in an area with a known history of crime may owe a greater duty to provide security than one where such risks were not foreseeable. Establishing a negligent security claim requires proof of the foreseeable risk, the inadequacy of the security provided, and the connection between that inadequacy and the harm.
Like other premises claims, these cases depend on records of prior incidents and the condition of the property's security measures, which are best gathered while they remain available.
If your condition allows, report the incident to the property owner, manager, or business employee and request that an incident report be created. Take photographs of the dangerous condition and the surrounding area before anything is cleaned up, repaired, or changed. Obtain contact information for any witnesses who saw the incident or the hazard beforehand.
Seek medical treatment promptly and follow all recommendations from your healthcare providers. Medical records help connect the injury to the incident, while photographs and witness accounts help preserve evidence that may otherwise disappear.
Early documentation is important in determining how the injury occurred and whether the property owner had a reasonable opportunity to discover and correct the hazard.
The investigation begins with documenting the dangerous condition itself, ideally through photographs taken before the owner repairs or removes it. It extends to identifying and securing surveillance footage that may show how the hazard arose and for how long it persisted, which requires a prompt preservation request before the footage is overwritten. These two steps alone can determine whether the central elements of the claim can be established.
The investigation also reaches the owner's own records and practices. Maintenance and inspection logs reveal whether the owner met its obligations to find and address hazards. Incident reports and prior complaints can show whether the owner knew of a recurring problem. Employee accounts can establish what was known and when. Witness statements from others present capture the conditions at the time of the injury.
Assembling these sources into a coherent picture of what the owner knew, what it should have done, and how it fell short is the work of a premises investigation.
The recurring theme across every kind of premises case is that the evidence needed to prove the claim is in the property owner's control and disappears on a schedule, which is why early action matters.
Surveillance footage that could show how a hazard arose and how long it persisted is overwritten within days or weeks. The dangerous condition itself, the spill, the broken step, the faulty railing, is repaired or cleaned up once the owner is aware of it, removing the physical proof. Maintenance records age, witnesses become hard to find, and the details that establish the owner's notice of the hazard grow steadily harder to reconstruct with each passing week.
This dynamic puts the injured person at a disadvantage if they wait, because the owner has both possession of the key evidence and an incentive not to preserve what would establish liability. Acting quickly to preserve relevant surveillance footage and records, document the dangerous condition, and identify witnesses helps level that imbalance in the injured person's favor. It is the difference between a claim built on solid, documented proof and one that depends solely on the injured person's word against the property owner's.
No. The owner is responsible only if they failed to use reasonable care, which generally means they knew or should have known about the hazard and failed to address it.
Notice means the owner knew about the hazard or should have discovered it through reasonable inspection. Proving how long the hazard existed is often key to establishing notice.
Not seeing a hazard does not bar your claim. The question is whether a reasonable person would have avoided it and whether the owner should have addressed it, and the evidence determines both.
Surveillance footage and the hazard itself can disappear within days. Acting quickly allows that evidence to be preserved before it is lost or the condition is repaired.
One year from the injury under § 28-3-104. If criminal charges arise from the same conduct, as in many negligent-security assault cases, the deadline extends to two years (§ 28-3-104(a)(2)).
Fox and Farmer has been helping injured people across East Tennessee since 1986. Our firm understands that premises liability cases often depend on one key issue: whether the property owner knew, or should have known, about the dangerous condition. From our office serving the Tri-Cities, our team acts quickly to preserve important evidence before it disappears.
Our work involves requesting surveillance footage, securing maintenance and inspection records, and documenting the hazard before it is cleaned up or repaired. We also work to build thorough medical documentation, including care received at the region's Level I trauma center.
We file in the correct court where your injury happened. Most of Johnson City is in Washington County (Circuit Court in Jonesborough), but the Carter County side is filed in Elizabethton, and the Sullivan County side is filed in Blountville.
Insurance companies may argue that the hazard was obvious or that the injured person should have avoided it. Photos of the scene taken before repairs are made, along with other timely evidence, can help preserve an accurate record of the conditions. Since this type of evidence may disappear within hours, prompt action is necessary.
Our firm offers free consultations, and clients pay no attorney's fees unless we recover compensation on their behalf.
If a dangerous condition injures you or a loved one in the Johnson City area, reach out to us immediately to protect your case. Call us at 423-390-0000 today.
