South Carolina Criminal Attorney Blog

Having recently written an article here on the blog explaining things about Negligence as it applies to car accidents, I thought I would write a few other things about this area of the law that are not related to auto accidents, but are important just the same.

One very important aspect of the negligence laws is that of "Notice." A lot of people understand how important Notice is in the law from a constitutional stand point. Notice is rooted in the law in many, many different ways, such as adequate notice of a court appearance, an notice about what a case is about, and all of the Discovery matters in law suits and in criminal cases. And so forth. Notice is a big part of the law and in all regards.

But the notice requirement in this aspect of the negligence laws is entirely different from what I addressed above, and exists purely from as a practical matter, as you will see.

This notice requirement of negligence cases simply says that the person that is potentially the civil defendant either knew, or should have known about the dangerous condition.

I have seen this requirement of negligence cases crop its ugly head up frequently in slip and fall cases. That is usually because there was something on the floor where a person was walking, and the person fell as a result of it. It then has at times become an issue because the insurance company, who will hang thier hat on any defense imaginable, has alleged that the property owner did not know of the dangerous condition.

So far now I'm sure you can eaisly see what the notice requirement is not the least bit related to car accidents.

It works this way. It's a goofy example, but it does a fairly good job of getting the point accross. If someone drops a banana peel on Joe's driveway and then along comes Sally and she steps on the banana peel, falls and is hurt, the negligence requirement of notice surfaces from time to time. I can just about guarantee you it will surface if the insurance company thinks it can defend the claim by raising it as a defense. So Sally falls and is hurt. If the banana peel had been discarded just five minutes earlier, then it would be unreasonable to hold the property owner liable for Sally's injuries. That simply would not make sense and would be grossly unfair to the Joe. However, if on the other hand that banana peel had been sitting in the driveway for a month and Joe had to walk by it every day to get to his car, then the insurance company would have a pretty hard time trying to assert the defense of no notice. Quite clearly either Joe knew about it, or he certainly should have known. The law was smart enough to include the "should have known" part so as to prevent people from simply saying that they didn't know.

Now, to take this a step further, Joe's knowledge of the banana peel or his "should have known" obligations, certainly do not create any sort of duty on his part to inspect his driveway. But, it could. If for some reason there is some property where people travel on each day, then a certain obligation would be created for the property owners to keep the property safe. It all depends on the circumstances.