Injured in a Slip & Fall Accident in Madison?

If you’ve been hurt in a fall, your health comes first. Even if you feel like you can walk it off, falls can cause fractures, head injuries, torn ligaments, and spinal injuries that don’t produce full symptoms immediately.

Call 911 if you’re seriously injured. If the injury seems less urgent, get to a doctor or urgent care facility as soon as possible — ideally the same day. A medical evaluation within hours of the fall creates a documented connection between the incident and your injuries. Without it, the property owner’s insurance company will argue your injuries happened somewhere else.

Madison has excellent medical options for fall injuries: UW Hospital and Clinics (Level I Trauma Center), SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital (Level II Trauma Center at 700 S. Brooks Street), UnityPoint Health-Meriter, and multiple SSM Health Dean Medical Group urgent care locations throughout Dane County.

Tell the property owner, store manager, landlord, or whoever is responsible for the property about your fall. Ask them to create a written incident report. Get a copy if possible. If they refuse to give you a copy, note the date, time, and the name of the person you spoke with.

If you fell at a business — a grocery store, restaurant, retail shop, the Capitol Square area, or a parking garage — ask to speak with a manager and request that they preserve any surveillance camera footage. Many businesses overwrite security footage within days or weeks, so making this request quickly is critical.

If you fell on a public sidewalk or government property, report the incident to the relevant government entity — the City of Madison (for city sidewalks and buildings), Dane County (for county facilities), or the State of Wisconsin (for state buildings including the Capitol). Claims against government entities have special notice requirements and shorter deadlines.

This is the most important step for protecting your slip and fall claim. Pull out your phone and photograph or video: the exact spot where you fell, the hazardous condition that caused your fall — wet floor, ice, snow, uneven pavement, broken stairs, torn carpet, poor lighting, missing handrails, or any other defect, the absence of warning signs (no "wet floor" sign, no cones, no caution tape), the surrounding area including lighting conditions, your injuries — bruises, swelling, cuts, torn clothing, any shoes you were wearing (the property owner may try to blame your footwear).

If there were witnesses, get their names and phone numbers. Witness testimony can be decisive in premises liability cases, where the property owner will almost certainly argue you were careless or that the hazard was "open and obvious."

The property owner’s insurance company will contact you. They may sound sympathetic, but their goal is to pay you as little as possible — or nothing at all. They will look for any reason to deny your claim, including arguing that you weren’t paying attention, that the hazard was obvious, or that you were in an area you shouldn’t have been.

You are not legally required to give them a recorded statement. Decline politely: "I’m not prepared to give a statement at this time." Do not accept early settlement offers.

Wisconsin has one of the strongest premises liability protections in the country: the Safe Place Statute (Wis. Stat. § 101.11). This law requires employers and property owners to maintain buildings and structures that are safe for employees, visitors, and the public.

Under the Safe Place Statute, the property owner has a heightened duty of care — greater than the ordinary negligence standard used in most states. If you were injured because a building, stairway, sidewalk, or other structure was not maintained in a "safe" condition, you may have a strong claim under this statute.

The Safe Place Statute applies to public buildings, commercial properties, workplaces, and certain outdoor areas that are part of a building’s premises. It does not apply to private homes (unless they employ domestic workers) or to natural outdoor conditions.

This is a significant advantage for injury victims in Wisconsin. In many other states, property owners only need to exercise "reasonable care." In Wisconsin, the standard is higher — the property must actually be safe.

Under Wis. Stat. § 893.54, you have three years from the date of the fall to file a personal injury lawsuit. For claims against government entities (city sidewalks, public buildings), shorter notice deadlines may apply — sometimes as little as 120 days. Consult an attorney promptly if your fall occurred on government property.

Wisconsin’s modified comparative negligence rule (Wis. Stat. § 895.045) applies to slip and fall cases. If the property owner argues you were partially at fault — for not watching where you were going, for example — your compensation is reduced by your fault percentage. If you are 51% or more at fault, you recover nothing. This is why documenting the hazard and the lack of warning signs is so important.

Keep the clothes and shoes you were wearing at the time of the fall. Do not wash, repair, or discard them — they are evidence. Save all medical records, bills, and receipts. Keep a journal documenting your pain levels, limitations, and recovery progress.

If your fall was caused by snow or ice, take photos immediately — the condition will melt and disappear. Madison’s long winters (typically November through March) create abundant ice and snow hazards on sidewalks, parking lots, and building entrances.

Slip and fall cases can be difficult to prove without legal help. Property owners and their insurance companies aggressively defend these claims, arguing the hazard was "open and obvious," that you weren’t paying attention, or that they didn’t know about the dangerous condition.

An experienced Madison premises liability attorney can evaluate whether the property owner violated the Safe Place Statute, gather and preserve evidence including surveillance footage, establish that the property owner knew or should have known about the hazard, calculate the full value of your claim, and negotiate or litigate in Dane County Circuit Court.

Most premises liability attorneys work on contingency — you pay nothing unless they win.