Burbank Slip and Fall Lawyer

An owner is liable for a hazard it created, knew about, or should have discovered with reasonable inspection. That makes the business's own records the center of the case: sweep logs, maintenance tickets, work orders, and prior incident reports for the same spot.

A recurring condition — the same ramp that is always wet, the same light that is always out — is a much stronger case than a one-off spill, because the history itself supplies the notice.

Burbank has a large amount of publicly controlled walking surface: city sidewalks, parks, the civic center, the Metrolink station approaches, and the airport. A claim involving any of it generally requires a written claim to the entity within six months (Government Code § 911.2) before a lawsuit is possible.

The airport adds a wrinkle. It is run by a joint powers authority formed by Burbank, Glendale, and Pasadena, so the correct claimant recipient is not the City of Burbank. Sending a timely claim to the wrong agency can be as costly as sending none, which is why we confirm the entity from records first.

Uplifted sidewalk panels around mature street trees are among Burbank's most common trip hazards. Responsibility can fall on the city, and in some circumstances on the adjacent property owner, depending on who created or maintained the condition — so both possibilities are investigated rather than assumed.

Measure and photograph the height difference with a reference object in frame on the day it happens. Cities repair reported defects, and a repaired sidewalk with no record of what it looked like before is a much harder case.