Premises Liability

Our team is experienced in defending businesses against a wide range of premises liability claims 

Our team helps clients locally, regionally, and nationally to defend a wide variety of claims, ranging from local investigations to defending high-profile, nationally reported incidents through trial. Our experience includes defending our clients against allegations of

• Dram shop
• Electric shock and burns
• Elevator, escalator, and moving walk accidents
• Exposure to toxic chemicals on premises
• Falling merchandise
• Food poisoning
• Physical and sexual assault
• Inadequate security
• Slip and fall/hazardous conditions
• Swimming pool accidents/drowning
• Third-party criminal incidents
• Train accidents
• Unlawful detention
• Workplace violence and mass shootings/suicide

Our clients range from local businesses to global corporations 

Every client is unique. They have different cultures, problems, and goals. We work with you to determine what is right for you. Our experience includes working with the following industries

• Apartment complexes
• Bank-ATM crimes
• Casinos
• Convenience and department stores
• Daycare centers
• Grocery stores
• Hotels
• Industrial facilities
• Insurance companies
• Mortgage companies (property acquired through foreclosures)
• National and local retailers
• Product manufacturers (in some cases brought as premises liability claims for exposure to a product and in other cases providing product liability defense in premises liability cases)
• Quasi-public entities
• Railroads
• Restaurants

Our lawyers are problem solvers and problem preventers 

Our services assist you in making careful, timely, and informed decisions

• Counseling to avoid litigation before it arises
• Managing crises when they occur
• Immediate investigations of accidents and criminal incidents, including assisting clients with their internal investigations
• Hiring investigators to discreetly and thoroughly document and assess the facts and potential liability
• Identifying and hiring experts who  give valuable advice and can serve as litigation witnesses (including security experts, criminologists, physicians, accident reconstructionists, biomechanical engineers, economists, vocational rehabilitation experts, and child psychologists/psychiatrists)
• Investigating and examining opposing experts
• Preparing witnesses for and defending depositions of corporate, executive, and managerial witnesses and conducting depositions of adverse and non-party witnesses
• Providing strategic litigation plans and budgets to  "right size" the defense of matters
• Taking measures to help ensure you are ready for litigation
• Communicating with your board of directors, customers, and law enforcement
• Advising on public relations
• Providing strategic guidance to clients and co-counsel in joint defense
• Providing in-depth analysis of medical causation
• Ability to handle multiple issues in other practice areas that may arise for property owners in premises liability cases, such as product liability, toxic torts, employment, real estate, bankruptcy, and corporate matters.
• Defending clients through discovery, settlement negotiations, alternative dispute resolution, and–when necessary–trial and appeal

Following is a selected sampling of matters and is provided for informational purposes only. Past success does not indicate the likelihood of success in any future matter.

• Served as lead counsel in a high profile, two-week wrongful death shooting trial in Las Vegas, representing one of the largest publicly traded casinos in America, and the trial ended in a defense verdict for the casino; also served as lead trial counsel in numerous casino cases in Las Vegas stemming from violence between rival motorcycle gangs (obtained complete defense verdicts for the client in two of the cases after two-week long trials; a third case resulted in a very favorable settlement during trial)
• Won defense verdict in three-week wrongful death mesothelioma trial in a case that was brought as a premises liability claim arising from a manufacturing facility
• Served as trial counsel for mass shooting / active shooter / suicide case for Fortune 500 Company in Atlanta, GA
• Conducted local investigation to avoid litigation for hotel that was alerted to possible rape inside hotel room
• Served as trial counsel for local ATM shooting, resulting in favorable settlement after days of evidence and testimony
• Represented hotels and casinos in trials involving murders, rapes, and sexual assaults
• Secured a defense verdict for a national railroad carrier in a case involving tragic and disabling injuries that the plaintiff suffered while trespassing in the defendant's rail yard
• Defended bank property owner, by virtue of foreclosure, concerning condition on property alleged to create hazard to motorist after vehicle occupant suffered traumatic brain injury; mediation resulted in favorable settlement
• Defended food service company in a major e-Coli outbreak at local college campus, with mediation resulting in favorable settlement
• Defended large hotel company in third-party criminal child molestation case, settled favorably as the jury was being empanelled
• Managed evictions of hold-over tenants in rental properties and hotels