Slip, Trip and Fall Injuries in Colorado

Slip and fall / premises liability: Colorado's Premises Liability Act controls injury claims against a landowner (including an occupant or anyone legally responsible for the property) and sets different duties by the visitor's status, which the judge decides. A trespasser may recover only for damage the landowner caused willfully or deliberately. A licensee (including a social guest) may recover for the landowner's unreasonable failure to use reasonable care about dangers the landowner created and actually knew about, or to warn of unusual dangers it did not create but actually knew about. An invitee (someone there on business, or because the public is invited) may recover for the landowner's unreasonable failure to use reasonable care to protect against dangers the landowner actually knew or should have known about; for agricultural or vacant land, only dangers the landowner actually knew about count.

Snow and ice on public property: under Colorado's Governmental Immunity Act, the mere existence of snow or ice is not by itself a dangerous condition. A public entity can be liable for a particular dangerous accumulation of snow, ice, sand or gravel on the surface of a covered public road when it failed to use available means to remove or mitigate it after actual notice and a reasonable time to act, and for an accumulation of snow and ice that physically interferes with public access on walks leading to a public building open for business, under the same actual-notice and reasonable-time conditions.

Public sidewalks: Colorado public entities are generally immune from tort claims, but immunity is waived for injuries from a dangerous condition of a public highway, road, street or sidewalk within a municipality (on the portion designed for public travel or parking) that physically interferes with the movement of traffic. A dangerous condition is a physical condition the public entity knew about, or with reasonable care should have known about, caused by its negligence in building or maintaining the facility; inadequate design alone does not count. The sections read do not place sidewalk liability on abutting property owners.

Claims against a city, county or other public entity: a written notice of claim must be filed within 182 days after the injury is discovered; this is a jurisdictional requirement and missing it bars the claim. The notice goes to the governing body of the public entity or its attorney (claims against the state go to the attorney general), by registered or certified mail or personal service, and must state the facts, the injury and the amount of damages requested. A lawsuit cannot be filed until the entity denies the claim or 90 days pass. Recovery is capped by statute at $350,000 for one person and $990,000 per occurrence, amounts the statute adjusts every four years for inflation (the Secretary of State publishes the adjusted figures); the same act covers state and local entities.

Modified comparative negligence (50% bar). An injured person can recover if his or her negligence was not as great as the negligence of the person being sued; damages are reduced by the injured person's percentage of fault. If the injured person's share is equal to or greater than the defendant's, the court enters judgment for the defendant. Each defendant generally pays only its own percentage of fault.

Most tort lawsuits, including negligence claims for personal injury, must be filed within two years after the claim accrues. Injury and property-damage claims arising from the use or operation of a motor vehicle have three years. Assault, battery, false imprisonment, libel and slander have one year.