When you're injured on someone's property, whether it's a business owner or an average citizen, meeting with a personal injury attorney will help you to better understand whether you might have any grounds to pursue legal action. In order for a premises liability personal injury case to be successful, your attorney needs to prove that the property owner knew about the problem that led to your injury, but that he or she ignored it. Proving this point is central to helping your case move forward successfully, so you can expect that your attorney will use various methods to prove this theory. Here are some ways that he or she will do so.

Talk To Other Parties

The attorney's investigators will dig into whether other people may have complained about the issue in question to the property owner. One thing that can dramatically improve the strength of your case is finding someone else who was injured in the same way and brought the problem to the property owner's attention, but he or she ignored it. For example, if you were to trip on an awkward, unmarked step in a building, the investigators will look to find someone else who experienced the same issue, and then have this person detail how he or she raised the issue with the property owner.

Find A Paper Trail

Often, a property owner may look into correcting an issue, only to learn that doing so would be expensive. He or she may then decide to avoid doing this work or simply put it off indefinitely. This process often has a paper trail. For example, in the case of an assault in a shadowy area of the property, the property owner may have explored having outdoor lights installed. If the investigators can obtain paperwork from a local lighting company that reveals the property owner received a quote for buying lights but didn't follow through, this can support the fact that he or she knew of the problem.

Talk To Him/Her

In some cases, your attorney's plan may be to have his or her investigators approach the property owner to talk about the issue. The investigators are skilled interviewers, and their goal may be to have the property owner express some knowledge of the issue before your injury. For example, in the case of a trip-and-fall accident, the investigators may pretend to voice concerns about the property, looking for the owner to say something such as, "Yes, I need to look into that problem. Many people have tripped there over the years."

For more information, contact a company like Hodge Law Firm.