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Hurt at Somersville Towne Center, a Lone Tree Way grocery store, an apartment stairwell, or a city sidewalk? Store cameras overwrite in days. We send the preservation letter the day you call.
While you wait:
Slip and fall cases look simple from the outside. They are not. Unlike a car accident, where fault is often obvious from the police report, a premises liability claim turns on something much harder to prove: notice. Your attorney must prove the property owner knew or should have known about the dangerous condition and failed to fix it or warn about it.
A spill that sat on a grocery store floor for 45 minutes, documented on surveillance video. A cracked sidewalk that appeared on a city maintenance request log six months earlier.
A spill that occurred 30 seconds before you walked through it. The same sidewalk crack with no prior reports.
Because notice is the battleground, evidence preservation is everything. Surveillance footage gets overwritten in 7 to 30 days. Inspection logs get archived. Witnesses move on. The first 30 days after a fall determine what your case is worth. Falls are one part of what our Antioch personal injury lawyer team handles, alongside crash and dog bite cases.
Certain locations in Antioch generate a disproportionate share of fall injuries. If you were hurt at any of these, call us:
Common-area flooring, food-court spills, restroom entries, and parking-structure ramps all require active maintenance. Rainy-season foot traffic creates wet-floor hazards in entry corridors. Both the mall’s management company and individual tenants can carry liability.
Big-box and grocery stores along the Hillcrest-to-Deer Valley stretch. Wet-floor entries during rain, produce-aisle spills, and seasonal end-cap displays are recurring hazards.
Older buildings, narrower entryways, and nighttime spill conditions in the downtown corridor. Lighting and threshold conditions are common contributing factors.
Wet floors near coolers, broken pavement at fueling islands, ice-maker leaks, and unlit canopy areas. Routinely contested by insurers, but well-supported by surveillance footage when preserved early.
Older complexes along the A Street and L Street corridors: stairwells, common walkways, laundry rooms, and parking areas that often go poorly maintained. Landlord liability for tenant and guest falls is a significant part of our Antioch caseload.
Older neighborhoods carry cracked, heaved, and uneven sidewalk sections. Roots, settling, and deferred patching create predictable trip points. Claims against the City of Antioch require a government claim within 6 months.
Trail erosion, root heaving, broken pathways, and seasonal mud. Contra Loma is administered by the East Bay Regional Park District, and the same 6-month government claim deadline applies.
Premises liability cases are won and lost on evidence. Most of it disappears within weeks. Here is what to lock down immediately:
The wet floor, cracked pavement, broken step, missing handrail. Multiple angles, with something for scale. Property owners typically remediate within hours.
Most stores keep footage only 7 to 30 days. A written preservation letter sent immediately can save the single most important piece of evidence in your case. We send these the day we’re hired.
Insist on a written incident report at the time of the fall and request a copy. It creates a contemporaneous record owners sometimes try to dispute later.
Names, phone numbers, and emails of anyone who saw the fall or the condition that caused it. Witnesses become unreachable quickly.
Preserve the shoes and clothes you fell in. Insurers routinely argue footwear contributed to the fall; preserved physical evidence rebuts that.
A medical record dated the day of the fall is critical. Sutter Delta Medical Center handles most Antioch fall injuries; for serious trauma, John Muir Walnut Creek is the nearest Level II trauma center.
The decisions you make in the first hours after a fall directly affect what your case is worth:
Miss these and your right to recover may be gone permanently:
Retail stores, restaurants, apartments (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1)
City sidewalks, public parks, government buildings: written claim required (Cal. Gov. Code § 911.2)
Get a written incident report as soon as possible after the fall
If you fell on a City of Antioch sidewalk, in a public park, at a government building, or anywhere on city, county, or state property, the 6-month deadline under Gov. Code § 911.2 is strict. Miss it and you can lose the claim entirely; relief for late claims is narrow. Contra Loma Regional Park (East Bay Regional Park District) carries the same deadline. If there is any chance the property is government-owned, call us today.
California uses pure comparative negligence. If a jury decides you were 25% at fault for not seeing the hazard, your award is reduced by 25%, not eliminated. Insurance adjusters routinely overstate victim fault to lower payouts. Don’t accept their assessment without talking to a lawyer.
You call us at 1-800-707-0707, 24/7. We listen, answer your questions, and tell you whether you have a case worth pursuing. No commitment. No fee.
Within hours of being hired, we send surveillance preservation letters, request inspection and maintenance logs, identify witnesses, and pull the incident report. The first 30 days are decisive.
For private property, we put insurers on notice. For government property, we file the required claim within the 6-month window. That step is non-negotiable.
Once you’ve reached maximum medical improvement, we send a comprehensive demand covering medical costs, future care, lost wages, and pain and suffering.
If the insurer won’t pay what your case is worth, we file suit at the Wakefield Taylor Courthouse in Martinez. Most cases still settle.
Settlement or verdict. We resolve outstanding medical liens, deduct fees and costs, and put your check in your hand.
More Antioch injury help:
You must show the owner had actual or constructive notice, meaning they knew about the hazard or, given how long it had existed, should have known. Surveillance video showing how long a spill sat, inspection logs, prior complaint records, and witness statements are the typical evidence used to establish notice under California Civil Code § 1714. The earlier we’re hired, the more of this evidence we can preserve before it disappears.
California uses pure comparative negligence. Even if you were partly at fault for not seeing the hazard, you can still recover. Your award is reduced by your percentage of fault, not eliminated. Insurance adjusters routinely overstate victim fault to lower payouts. Don’t accept their assessment without talking to a lawyer.
Government claim rules apply. You must file a written government tort claim with the City of Antioch within 6 months of the injury under Cal. Gov. Code § 911.2 before you can sue. Missing this deadline typically bars the claim. Some sidewalks may be county-maintained, and we determine the correct entity at intake. Call us immediately if you fell on a sidewalk.
Cases are still winnable without eyewitnesses. Surveillance footage, the property’s incident report, inspection and maintenance logs, photographs of the hazard, and your own contemporaneous medical records can establish liability. The earlier we are involved, the more of this evidence we can preserve before it disappears.
Often yes. California courts evaluate the height differential, lighting, surrounding conditions, and prior notice of the defect. Sidewalk cases on city property carry the 6-month government claim deadline. Private parking-lot trip-and-fall cases follow the standard 2-year statute. Call us with the address and we’ll tell you whether the property is private or government.
Case value depends on your injuries and the strength of the liability evidence, not the type of defendant. Store cases often have stronger liability evidence (surveillance footage, inspection logs) but face well-funded insurance defense. Government cases carry strict procedural requirements and do not allow punitive damages, but can be straightforward when the prior-notice evidence is strong. The variable that matters most is the severity of your injuries.
Most slip and fall cases resolve in 9 to 18 months. Cases requiring litigation can run longer. Investigation and evidence preservation happen immediately; the demand and negotiation phase typically begins once you’ve reached maximum medical improvement so the full scope of damages is known.
The property’s insurer is not on your side. Their first offer is what they hope you’ll accept, not what your case is worth. Free consultation. No fee unless we win.
Attorney Advertising. Scranton Law Firm, 2450 Stanwell Dr, Concord, CA 94520. Responsible attorney: Christian Scranton, California State Bar #196959. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.