Injured in a Slip & Fall in St. Louis?

After a fall, take a moment before trying to get up. Falls can cause fractures, head injuries, spinal injuries, and torn ligaments that worsen with movement. If you feel severe pain in your back, neck, hips, or head, stay still and ask someone to call 911.

Even if you're able to stand, don't dismiss what happened. Many fall injuries — concussions, hairline fractures, herniated discs, and soft tissue tears — don't produce severe symptoms right away. A sore wrist today could be a scaphoid fracture that needs surgical pinning. A stiff neck could be a herniated cervical disc. Get checked out.

Tell the store manager, property owner, landlord, or whoever is responsible for the property that you fell and were injured. Ask them to create a written incident report and get a copy. If they won't give you a copy, write down the date, time, exact location, and the name of the person you spoke with.

This creates an official record that the fall happened on their property. Without it, the property owner may later claim they had no knowledge of the incident or deny it occurred altogether.

Before the scene changes, use your phone to photograph the hazard that caused your fall: the wet floor, icy sidewalk, broken step, uneven surface, poor lighting, torn carpet, missing handrail, or whatever condition caused you to go down. Photograph the area from multiple angles. If there was a spill, photograph whether a "wet floor" sign was present — or absent.

Photograph your injuries: bruises, swelling, cuts, scrapes. Get the names and phone numbers of any witnesses. Note the weather conditions, lighting, time of day, and anything else that contributed to the fall.

This evidence can disappear fast. Spills get mopped. Ice gets salted. Broken steps get repaired. Surveillance footage gets overwritten on a 7- to 30-day loop. Once the hazard is fixed and the footage is gone, proving what caused your fall becomes much harder.

See a doctor as soon as possible — ideally within 24 to 72 hours. A medical evaluation creates a documented link between the fall and your injuries. Without it, the property owner's insurance company will argue your injuries were pre-existing or caused by something else entirely.

St. Louis has some of the best trauma care in the Midwest. Barnes-Jewish Hospital — the largest hospital in Missouri and a Level I trauma center — handles the most complex injuries. SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital is also a Level I trauma center in the city. In St. Louis County, Mercy Hospital St. Louis at I-270 and I-64 is another Level I trauma center. St. Louis Children's Hospital handles pediatric injuries. For non-emergency fall injuries like fractures, sprains, and soft tissue damage, urgent care clinics throughout the metro can provide X-rays, wound care, and referrals to orthopedic or neurological specialists.

Keep every medical record, bill, and receipt. Document your symptoms daily — pain levels, limitations on movement, inability to work or perform daily activities. This contemporaneous record is powerful evidence if your case goes to trial.

In Missouri, property owners and occupiers owe a duty of care to people who are lawfully on their property. The extent of that duty depends on your legal status as a visitor:

Invitees (customers, clients, visitors invited onto the property for the owner's benefit) are owed the highest duty of care. The property owner must regularly inspect for hazards, fix known dangers, and warn about hazards they know about or should have discovered through reasonable inspection. Licensees (social guests, people on the property with permission but not for the owner's commercial benefit) are owed a duty to warn about known dangers that are not obvious. Trespassers are owed only the duty not to be willfully or wantonly injured.

Most slip and fall cases in St. Louis involve invitees — you were shopping at a store in the Delmar Loop, eating at a restaurant in the Central West End, visiting a business in Soulard, or walking through Union Station. The property owner's duty is highest in these situations.

Missouri follows pure comparative fault (Mo. Rev. Stat. § 537.765). If the property owner argues you were partially responsible for not watching where you were going, your compensation may be reduced — but it cannot be eliminated. There is no bar to recovery in Missouri, even if you were 99% at fault. This is more favorable to injured people than most states.

The property owner's insurance company will likely contact you within days. They may offer a quick settlement that seems generous in the moment. Don't accept it. Early offers are almost always far below the actual value of your claim, especially before you know the full extent of your injuries.

Falls can cause injuries that worsen over time — a herniated disc may require surgery months later, a concussion may result in long-term cognitive issues, a fractured hip may need eventual replacement. Accepting a quick settlement typically requires you to sign a release that prevents any future claims, even if your injuries turn out to be far more serious than initially thought.

Missouri's statute of limitations for personal injury is five years from the date of the injury (Mo. Rev. Stat. § 516.120). This is one of the longest in the country.

Important note: Missouri HB 68 (passed the House in 2025) would reduce this to two years for injuries after August 28, 2025. The bill did not receive a Senate vote and is not current law as of March 2026, but this area of law may be changing. Always verify the current deadline with an attorney.

Government property exception: If you fell on property owned by the city of St. Louis, St. Louis County, or the state of Missouri, the sovereign immunity statute (Mo. Rev. Stat. § 537.600 et seq.) applies. You must provide written notice of your claim within 90 days, and damages are capped at approximately $2.7 million per person and $3.6 million per occurrence (adjusted annually for inflation). Because St. Louis City is an independent city — not part of St. Louis County — claims against city property go through a different governmental entity than claims against county property. Make sure you file with the correct jurisdiction.

Slip and fall cases can be deceptively complex. Property owners will argue the hazard was "open and obvious," that you weren't paying attention, or that they had no knowledge of the dangerous condition. Proving what the owner knew and when they knew it requires investigation — surveillance footage, maintenance logs, prior incident reports, employee testimony.

Most personal injury attorneys in St. Louis offer free consultations and work on contingency — you pay nothing unless they recover compensation for you. An attorney can also help navigate the city-vs.-county jurisdictional question and ensure your claim is filed in the correct court.