Long Beach Slip and Fall Lawyer
Slip and Fall Attorney Long Beach
You were checking in at a downtown hotel, walking through a waterfront restaurant, or crossing the airport terminal, and a second later you were on the floor. Now there is a fracture, a surgery date, and an insurer asking for a recorded statement. If you are looking for a Long Beach slip and fall lawyer, that is usually where you are when you find us.
We represent people seriously hurt in falls on property someone else was responsible for keeping safe. In Long Beach that property is often public without looking public, and that changes your deadline from two years to six months.
We handle Long Beach fall cases from our Los Angeles office on San Vicente Boulevard, and we meet with you by phone or video. Call (424) 465-2500 for a free consultation. No fee unless we win.
Slip and Fall Attorney Long Beach: Where These Falls Happen
Serious falls in Long Beach tend to happen where visitors, wet surfaces, and hard floors meet:
- The downtown waterfront. The Queen Mary, the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center, the Aquarium of the Pacific, Shoreline Village, and Rainbow Harbor & Marina sit close together. The City of Long Beach manages key leases and contracts for its waterfront, so a fall there can involve a private operator, the City, or both.
- Downtown hotels. Lobby marble, pool decks, and wet entryways. The hotel operator usually answers for the floor.
- Long Beach Airport. The airport is owned and operated by the City of Long Beach. A fall in the terminal may be a claim against the City, and a concession operator may share responsibility.
- Stores, restaurants, and apartment buildings along the city’s main corridors, including Long Beach Boulevard, Ocean Boulevard, and Pacific Coast Highway. These are private premises cases.
- Metro A Line stations. Wardlow, Willow Street, Pacific Coast Highway, Anaheim Street, 5th Street, 1st Street, Downtown Long Beach, and Pacific Avenue are LA Metro property, not city property.
- City parks and beaches. The Parks, Recreation and Marine Department operates the city’s parks and beach facilities.
A fall on a private floor is rarely a police matter, so the only record may be the manager’s incident report, which stays in the owner’s file unless someone asks for it. Ask for a copy before you leave, and photograph the floor, the lighting, and any camera you can see. For a fall at a concert, convention, or festival, see our guide to a slip and fall at an event.
How California Premises Law Applies to a Long Beach Fall
An owner is not liable simply because you fell. Under Civil Code 1714, an owner or business must use ordinary care in managing its property, and since Rowland v. Christian (1968) California asks whether the owner acted reasonably under the circumstances.
In practice the case turns on notice. Either the owner knew about the hazard, or it was there long enough that a reasonable inspection would have found it. In Ortega v. Kmart Corp. (2001), the California Supreme Court held that a failure to inspect within a reasonable time can prove that second kind of notice. So the first records we ask a Long Beach hotel, restaurant, or store for are its inspection and sweep logs and its camera footage, which many systems overwrite within days.
Who answers for the fall depends on who controlled the spot:
| Where you fell | Who is usually responsible | First deadline |
|---|---|---|
| Store, restaurant, or hotel floor | The business operating it, and sometimes the landlord for structural defects | 2 years (Code of Civil Procedure 335.1) |
| Apartment stairwell, laundry room, or parking area | The landlord or property manager | 2 years |
| Waterfront venue on a city lease or contract | The operator, the City of Long Beach, or both | 6 months if the City is involved |
| Long Beach Airport terminal or walkway | The City of Long Beach; possibly a concession operator | 6 months for the City |
| Metro A Line station or platform | LA Metro | 6 months |
| City park, beach facility, or city building | The City of Long Beach | 6 months |
A repair made after your fall generally cannot be used to prove negligence (Evidence Code 1151), but your photographs of the condition before the repair can. For the full law on notice, warnings, and evidence, see our main slip and fall page and our explainer on premises liability cases.
When the Property Belongs to the City of Long Beach or Another Agency
A public entity is liable for a dangerous condition of its property under Government Code 835 when the condition created a foreseeable risk of your kind of injury and the entity either created it or had notice in time to fix it. A defect whose risk is trivial does not qualify (Government Code 830.2).
Before any lawsuit, a written claim must reach the right agency within six months of the fall (Government Code 911.2). In Long Beach that means:
- City of Long Beach. Claims are filed with the City Clerk at 411 West Ocean Boulevard, by the City’s online claim form, by mail, or in person. The City Clerk passes the claim to the City Attorney’s office, where a liability claims adjuster is assigned. This covers city parks, beach facilities, city buildings, the airport, and the Port of Long Beach, which is the City’s Harbor Department.
- LA Metro. A fall at an A Line station is a claim against the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, whose offices are at One Gateway Plaza in Los Angeles. A claim filed with the City of Long Beach does nothing against Metro.
- Long Beach Unified School District. The district has its own Claims for Damages Form, handled by its Risk Management office on Hughes Way.
If you tripped on a public sidewalk rather than inside a building, our Long Beach sidewalk accident page covers that track in detail.
What Your Long Beach Slip and Fall Claim Can Recover
Serious falls mean hip fractures, wrist and shoulder fractures that need hardware, head injuries from a backward fall onto tile, and spinal injuries from stairs. Your claim can include:
- Economic damages: emergency care, surgery, rehabilitation, future medical care, in-home help, lost wages, and lost earning capacity.
- Non-economic damages: pain, emotional distress, and the loss of the independence and activities you had before the fall.
Expect the insurer to argue that you were looking at your phone or wearing the wrong shoes. California follows pure comparative fault, so a share of fault reduces your recovery by that percentage and does not erase it. We answer that argument with the footage, the photographs, and the shoes themselves, so keep them.
Deadlines for a Long Beach Slip and Fall Claim
| Claim | Deadline | Authority |
|---|---|---|
| Fall on private property | Generally 2 years from the fall | Code of Civil Procedure 335.1 |
| Fall on City, Metro, school district, or County property | Written claim within 6 months | Government Code 911.2 |
| Injured child | The 2-year deadline is generally tolled until 18. The 6-month claim is not paused, though late-claim relief may be available | Code of Civil Procedure 352; Government Code 911.4, 911.6 |
The two-year deadline does not extend the six-month one. See our guide to California personal injury time limits.
How We Handle a Slip and Fall Case for Clients in Long Beach
- We listen first, and we tell you honestly whether there is a claim worth pursuing.
- We find out who controlled the spot. On the waterfront and at the airport, this step decides your deadline.
- We preserve the evidence. Preservation letters go out for footage, sweep logs, incident reports, and prior complaints.
- We present any government claim to the correct agency inside six months.
- We negotiate, and we litigate where needed. A lawsuit is filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The court’s Governor George Deukmejian Courthouse at 275 Magnolia Avenue in Long Beach hears civil cases, and the court assigns each personal injury case to a courthouse.
Our premises liability results include:
| Recovery | Case type |
|---|---|
| $6,000,000 | Premises liability |
| $1,700,000 | Premises liability |
| $200,000 | Premises liability |
These are firm results from across our practice. None came from a Long Beach case.
Every result depended on the facts of that case, and results will differ based on different facts. Past results do not guarantee, warrant, or predict the outcome of your matter.
For other injury types, see our Long Beach personal injury page.
Talk to a Long Beach Slip and Fall Lawyer Before the Footage Is Gone
If you were seriously hurt in a fall at a Long Beach hotel, restaurant, store, apartment building, the airport, or a waterfront venue, the video that shows what happened may already be on a deletion schedule. If the City, Metro, or a school district controlled the property, your six-month claim period began on the day you fell. As your Long Beach slip and fall lawyer, we can tell you which one applies.
Call Ravan Law at (424) 465-2500 for a free consultation. We will tell you who controlled the property and which deadline applies. No fee unless we win. For other injuries, see our Long Beach pages on car accidents, truck accidents, Uber and Lyft accidents, and dog bites. You can also see all of our locations.
6310 San Vicente Blvd., Suite 401, Los Angeles, CA 90048
Attorney Advertising. Ted H. Ravan, Esq., Ravan Law, Los Angeles, CA. This content is general information, not legal advice. Every case depends on its specific facts.
Every result depended on the facts of that case, and results will differ based on different facts. Past results do not guarantee, warrant, or predict the outcome of your matter.
