A Wilmington slip-and-fall lawyer who builds a case that the housekeeping log will support.

There is no average that means much because every case turns on its own facts. The honest range is wide. Medical specials, lost wages, the lasting nature of the injury, and the strength of the notice evidence all drive value.

Past recoveries I have handled include a $150K hotel slip-and-fall against a national chain (Jane Doe v National Hotel Chain) and a $900K fast-food restaurant fall, but past results do not guarantee future ones. Because North Carolina is a contributory negligence state, I never promise a number. I tell you what your case is built on and what the realistic range looks like after I have seen the medical records and the venue's documents.

To recover in a North Carolina slip-and-fall case, you generally have to prove the property owner had notice of the hazard. Actual notice means someone told them, a complaint was filed, or an employee saw it. Constructive notice means the hazard was there long enough that a reasonable inspection would have caught it.

Constructive notice is how most slip-and-fall cases get built. It is proven through the housekeeping schedule, the maintenance log, the surveillance window before and after the fall, and the testimony of the employees on shift. If the spill was on the floor for forty minutes during a posted ten-minute inspection cycle, the constructive notice case writes itself.

Maybe. North Carolina recognizes the open and obvious doctrine, which can weaken the duty to warn when a hazard was plain enough that a reasonable person would have seen and avoided it. The defense uses this doctrine aggressively on slip-and-fall cases. But it is fact-specific, not an automatic bar.

Lighting, distraction, the angle of approach, whether a warning sign was placed correctly, whether there was a reasonable alternative path, and prior complaints about the same hazard all matter. Many cases the defense calls open and obvious are anything but, once the footage and the inspection records come out.

Faster than people expect. Many restaurants, grocery stores, and hotels overwrite their surveillance on a seven-to-thirty-day loop. The footage of the spill being placed, the inspection that did or did not happen, and the fall itself can all be gone before the first medical follow-up.

That is why a preservation letter has to go out within days, not weeks. When you call my office, the letter is one of the first things I send. If the venue overwrites after receiving a preservation letter, that becomes its own evidentiary issue at trial.

Three years from the date of injury for most slip-and-fall cases in North Carolina. Two years if the case is a wrongful-death claim. The evidence degrades much faster than the statute runs, so the first call matters now, not later. The consultation is free. No fee unless I win your case.