Acquiring property such as a home is a taking on a huge responsibility.
All property carries some element of risk and there is a broad range of liability that a builder and homeowner can face. Defects in construction may cause a builder to be held liable for an injury, while the homeowner may be at fault for injuries incurred on their property. If you have recently suffered an injury caused by faulty construction on another persons’ property, you have a few options for recovering damages. Speak with a Missouri personal injury attorney to learn what rights you have under Missouri law.
In Missouri, property owners are legally obligated to ensure that any person visiting their property, for any reason, is safe from being injured or harmed. Homeowners are expected to maintain their property and repair any faults that could cause injury, or at the least alert a visitor to a potential risk. In some instances, the homeowner may not be aware of a serious fault in the construction of parts of their property. If an injury is incurred as a result of a builder or contractors negligence in the construction, they may be held liable. It is very complex and requires an experienced Missouri personal injury attorney to help decipher to whom the claim should be made against.
Proving Liability
To better understand, it may help to look at an example case:
A homeowner hires a contractor to help build a deck on the back of his house. Subcontractors are brought in to make a foundation and perform other tasks related to the construction. A separate deck builder is hired to construct the frame who asks the homeowner and general contractor to buy some necessary supplies, including the specialized bolts that attach the deck securely to the house.
Once the deck is finished and attached to the house, the homeowner and general contractor find a box of these specialized bolts leftover, but fail to ask the deck builder about them.
A few months later, the homeowner has a large party. The newly built deck is used to entertain a good majority of the guests. The weight of the people pulls the deck away from the house and collapses it onto the ground. Serious injuries are inflicted on many of the party goers, and sadly one loses his life.
An inspection of the scene showed that the deck had not been secured properly to the frame of the house. In fact, only one of those specialized bolts had been utilized, the rest of the decks support relied only on a few nails.
Obviously this was a difficult case to resolve as there were many plaintiffs and three defendants. The builder of the deck recognized his fault immediately and his insurance company paid the policy limit of $500,000. The homeowner and general contractor fought the claim, declaring that they could not be held responsible for the deck builders’ negligence. A judge agreed with the plaintiffs’ argument that the homeowner had been active in supervising the construction and should have inquired about the leftover bolts he found.
In the end, the insurance company for the homeowner settled for $1.6 million, and the general contractors for $80,000, bringing the total compensation for all of the injured parties to $2.18 million.
Premise Liability Lawyers
For that case to be successful, the importance of proving that the homeowner could have avoided the accident was the key. The full box of bolts he found showed how he was aware of a possible risk, and chose to ignore it. In the event that you, or someone in your family, have been injured by faulty construction it is important that you hire a personal injury attorney who will examine all of the evidence closely. While a homeowner may attempt to claim ignorance, a thorough investigation could prove otherwise.
photo credit: sublium
