The Role of Surveillance Footage in NYC Slip and Fall Cases

The Role of Surveillance Footage in NYC Slip and Fall Cases

A serious slip-and-fall accident in New York City can upend your life in the blink of an eye. You may be facing life-altering physical injuries, emotional trauma, and financial insecurity. When you have been hurt due to unsafe conditions on someone else’s property, proving liability is a key factor in successfully pursuing compensation for what you have gone through.

Unfortunately, establishing negligence and liability in a slip and fall claim is not always a simple feat. That said, video footage can serve as valuable evidence in your case. It can showcase the circumstances that led up to your fall, your injuries, and what took place in the immediate aftermath of the accident.

In this article, we will review how surveillance footage can impact the outcome of your slip and fall case. Understanding how video evidence can be used to your benefit as well as the New York laws that apply to your situation will help you build a robust personal injury claim.

Proving Negligence in a NYC Slip-and-Fall Accident

Under New York law, you can hold a property owner or managing entity responsible for any personal injuries sustained while you were on their property if they were careless or negligent. To successfully pursue compensation, you must clearly prove that the party responsible failed to take reasonable steps to maintain the property and keep visitors safe.

To prove your slip-and-fall accident claim in New York City, you will need to provide evidence that:

• You were lawfully on the property where you fell
• The business or property owner was negligent – he or she knew or should have known about the hazardous condition on the property and yet failed to repair, rope off, or warn of the condition
• The negligence directly caused your injury

Video footage from the scene of the slip-and-fall accident can go a long way toward establishing what exactly happened. An experienced New York slip and fall attorney can act quickly to help you retrieve available surveillance footage before it is lost or tampered with.

Surveillance Footage Influence on Slip and Fall Claims

In New York State, fall-related injuries are the leading cause of injury hospitalizations among adults 25 years and older. Necessarily, a number of these accidents will result in legitimate slip and fall claims.

In 2024, there were approximately 25,000 security cameras spread across New York City’s 5 boroughs, so there is a good chance your slip-and-fall accident was caught on tape. Such video footage can aid your slip and fall case in several ways.

Surveillance footage can show who was at fault and expose unsafe conditions

As stated, establishing the owner’s negligence and liability is critical to successfully resolving a slip and fall case in New York City. Surveillance footage can help prove the property owner or manager’s fault for your accident if it captures the unsafe condition that caused you to slip. For instance, a wet floor in a retail store such as Target, Trader Joe’s, a fast food place like Burger King, Chick-fil-A, or Wendy’s, or a patch of ice on the sidewalk.

Furthermore, video footage can show what created the hazard and how long it was there before you fell, thereby indicating whether the owner should have reasonably known of the dangerous situation and done something about it.

Surveillance footage can show the extent of your injuries

Surveillance camera footage provides an objective view of your slip-and-fall accident. Thus, video recordings can give credence to the severity of your injuries.

After a fall, it is not uncommon for the property owner to question the extent of your injuries. In such instances, surveillance footage can verify medical reports and testimony. It may show that you were unable to get up without help, had hit your head during the fall, or were taken away by an ambulance.

Furthermore, video evidence may aid you in recovering damages for non-economic losses such as pain and suffering. Along with other evidence, surveillance footage can prove that your injuries meet New York Insurance Law’s serious injury threshold.

Contact New York Fall Accident Lawyers for the Help You Deserve

A slip-and-fall accident on someone else’s property can be devastating – impacting nearly every aspect of your life. After such a traumatic event, you need a compassionate and experienced legal advocate on your side.

It is in your best interests to contact a lawyer as soon as possible. At Hill & Moin LLP, we can help you throughout the entire legal process when we take on your case, ensuring that all possible recourse is taken and no deadlines are missed. Our personal injury lawyers are adept at handling even the most challenging aspects of any slip and fall claim. This includes recovering any surveillance and visual evidence of the events that took place.

At Hill & Moin LLP, we offer our clients Personal Injury Recovery Solutions® that work. Learn how our dedicated legal team can help you secure your future. We serve slip and fall injury victims in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx, Staten Island, and Nassau County. Call (212) 668-6000 or fill out our online contact form for a free consultation. 

Don’t wonder about your rights!