Premises liability for injuries at shopping centers can get complicated fast because the business where someone gets hurt may not be the business legally responsible for the area.
Popular shopping centers in the Seattle area, like Westfield Southcenter, Bellevue Square, and Alderwood, usually involve landlords, tenants, property managers, maintenance crews, security companies, and outside contractors all operating on the same property.
That’s what separates these cases from a fall at a private home.
Say someone slips on water outside a grocery store. The store may control the entrance itself, while the shopping center owner controls the sidewalk. A cleaning company may inspect the area. If a roof leak caused the water, responsibility could shift again. One fall can lead to several contracts, several insurers, and several companies pointing fingers at each other.
The real questions become much more specific: Who controlled the area? Who maintained it? Who knew about the hazard? Who had the authority to fix it?
Figuring out who was legally responsible is usually the harder part.
That’s when you need the help of an experienced Seattle slip and fall lawyer.
Why Shopping Center Claims Become Multi-Party Cases
Shopping center injury claims often become multi-party cases because ownership, maintenance, and day-to-day control are split among different companies. A store may control everything inside its walls while having almost no responsibility for the parking lot outside.
That distinction matters under Washington premises liability law.
The state’s open and obvious hazard rule generally gets raised by property owners, tenants, and other lawful occupants. A defendant may argue that a condition was so visible or obvious that the injured person should have recognized it and avoided it. Before that argument even gets very far, though, there’s another question: Which defendant actually controlled the area? Consider a restaurant customer who slips on grease near the kitchen entrance.
The restaurant tenant may be the obvious defendant because its employees worked in and controlled that space.
Now move the fall just outside the door.
If the customer trips over cracked concrete on a common walkway, responsibility may fall on the shopping center owner or management company instead. Move the same accident into an icy parking lot and a snow removal contractor might enter the case too.
In all, potential defendants can include:
- Shopping center owners
- Commercial landlords
- Retail tenants
- Property managers
- Janitorial companies
- Security companies
- Snow removal contractors
- Landscaping companies
- Construction companies
- Elevator or escalator contractors
- Utility providers
This isn’t about naming every business connected to the property. It’s about finding the ones that actually had responsibility for the condition. That becomes especially important in Washington because defendants are generally responsible for compensatory damages according to their assigned percentage of fault, subject to certain exceptions.
Missing the right party early can create a problem later.
How Leases and Service Contracts Divide Responsibility
Commercial leases and service agreements often decide who is responsible for inspecting, repairing, cleaning, or securing a particular area of a shopping center.
A logo above the storefront won’t always tell you much.
A retail lease may give the tenant responsibility for everything inside the store while leaving sidewalks, parking areas, exterior lighting, and structural repairs to the landlord. Another lease may say the tenant has to maintain the immediate entrance.
Then come the outside vendors. The property owner may hire one company for cleaning, another for landscaping, another for snow removal, and another for security. That’s a lot of separate responsibilities packed into one shopping center, and those agreements can become some of the most important evidence in your case.
A landlord may argue that the tenant had responsibility. The tenant may point to the management company. The management company may say a contractor failed to perform its work.
At that point, the case becomes document-heavy. Lawyers may need leases, amendments, service contracts, work orders, invoices, certificates of insurance, inspection records, and emails before the responsibility picture becomes clear.
Sometimes the answer is easy.
Sometimes multiple defendants spend months blaming each other.
How Washington State’s Comparative Fault Affects a Shopping Center Injury Claim
Washington’s comparative fault laws can reduce your shopping center injury award based on your percentage of responsibility, but being partly at fault doesn’t automatically prevent you from recovery. Under RCW 4.22, a claimant’s compensatory damages are reduced in proportion to their share of fault rather than barred completely.
Washington law generally requires the fact finder to allocate 100 percent of the fault among the entities that caused the damages. So, if you suffer $200,000 in damages but are found 25 percent responsible for looking at a phone instead of watching the walkway, your potential recovery could fall to $150,000.
The remaining fault might then be divided among the shopping center owner, tenant, and maintenance contractor depending on who controlled the area, knew about the hazard, and failed to correct it.
The Law Offices of Justin R. Boland Advocates for Premises Liability Victims
Premises liability for injuries at shopping centers is really a question of divided responsibility, as commercial properties rarely operate with one owner, one maintenance crew, and one insurance policy.
That means Washington’s comparative fault rules can divide responsibility among the injured shopper and several defendants.
At The Law Offices of Justin R. Boland, we understand how that wider view matters.
When a landlord, tenant, property manager, and contractor all had some connection to the same dangerous condition, figuring out exactly what each one did, or failed to do, can make the difference between a weak claim and a properly developed one.
If you’ve been injured at a Seattle-area shopping mall due to the actions or negligence of another, contact us today and let’s get started protecting your rights and your financial future.
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