Hotel Accident

Regardless of why you decided to stay at a hotel in Seattle or elsewhere in Washington state – for business or vacation – you expect your stay in the hotel to be as relaxing and pleasant as possible. However, this is not always what you get in return for paying hundreds or thousands of dollars when checking into a hotel.

A hotel is the last place where you want to be concerned for your safety, because you expect the hotel to take care of it all. Unfortunately, many hotels fail to keep their guests safe either due to improper maintenance of the property, inadequate security measures on the premises, or any other form of negligence.

Negligence on the part of a hotel puts guests at a greater risk of injury. However, proving that a hotel was negligent is not going to be easy because hotels are usually represented by the best defense lawyers who skillfully deny personal injury claims. As you might have guessed, seeking legal representation from a Seattle hotel accident attorney is the best step you can take in order to blast through a negligent hotel’s defenses.

Various types of hotel accidents

You can be harmed and injured at a hotel in a wide range of accidents. These include but are not limited to:

• Slip and fall accidents
• Swimming pool accidents
• Bed bugs
• Food poisoning
• Infections
• Broken furniture accidents
• Burn injuries
• Electrocutions
• Trip and fall accidents
• Parking lot accidents
• Escalator & elevator accidents and
• A wide variety of other hotel accidents, which are typically caused by someone else’s negligence or carelessness (usually, the hotel’s)

To successfully win a claim against a hotel in Seattle or elsewhere in Washington state, you will need (a) an experienced hotel accident attorney in Seattle by your side, and (b) convincing evidence demonstrating that your injury was caused by the hotel’s negligence, improper inspection or maintenance of its premises, inadequate security, or a negligent act or omission to act on the part of a hotel employee.

How to prove the hotel’s negligence and liability for your injury

If you have been injured at a hotel, your case will have to meet several elements of a premises liability claim in order to make you eligible to seek compensation for your injury and any resulting damages.

Under Washington premises liability law, an injured hotel guest needs to establish all of the following elements of his or her claim against the negligent hotel:

1. The hotel owed you a duty of care, or, in other words, the hotel had a duty to keep you safe and prevent any reasonably foreseeable threats to your safety
2. The hotel breached that duty of care due to negligence or carelessness
3. That breach of duty caused or contributed to your injury and
4. You suffered injuries and losses as a result of that injury

Unfortunately, many guests choose to wait for hours or even days to contact the hotel manager and report their injury at a hotel. If you want to be able to hold the hotel accountable for its negligent acts, you need to notify the hotel manager of your hotel accident as soon as possible. In return, you should get a signed, written report from the manager. Also, talking to other guests who witnessed the accident will definitely help you recover damages. The same can be said about taking photos and recording videos detailing the dangerous condition that caused your injury.

Prior to filing a injury claim or lawsuit against a negligent hotel, you may want to consult with a Seattle hotel injury lawyer from Russell & Hill – Injury & Accident Attorneys, to get everything right and ensure that your claim meets all of the above-mentioned elements. Schedule a free consultation with our personal injury lawyers by calling at 206-516-2045.