Las Vegas Hotel Injury Lawyer

Did you recently sustain injuries while staying at a hotel in Las Vegas? For instance, have you been recently hurt by slipping and falling in your hotel room bathroom or did you slip and fall elsewhere on hotel property? If you have you are probably looking for an experienced hotel injury lawyer in Las Vegas.

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you need to get in touch with McDonald Worley, a trusted Las Vegas hotel injury lawyer. You may be entitled to compensation from the hotel of negligence was part of the reason why you had your accident.

To learn more about seeking compensation for injuries sustained while staying at a Las Vegas hotel, get in touch with McDonald Worley, a trusted injury law firm today at (877) 721-3423.

How Is Negligence Proven in Las Vegas Hotel Injury Cases?

When the vast majority of people sustain injuries while staying in a Las Vegas hotel, they usually sue for negligence. Under Nevada law, the victim (plaintiff) is required to prove the following 4 elements to prove negligence on the part of the hotel (defendant).

• The hotel actually had a legal duty of care to the victim
• The legal duty the hotel had was breached
• The breach in the legal duty was the proximate cause of the victim’s injuries
• The injury resulted in damages to the victim

Note: If the victim suffered a fatality as a result of the hotel injury, his/her estate as well as family is allowed to bring a wrongful death lawsuit..

The following is a more in-depth look at each of the 4 elements needed to prove negligence on the part of the hotel.

Legal Duty

Under Nevada law, hotels have a basic duty of ensuring that their property is free and safe from any threats likely to cause injury. Hotels are required to take all reasonable measures for preventing any foreseeable injuries.

The following are some precautions that hotels in Nevada are required to take to ensure that their premises are safe for guests.

• Hotel rooms and public areas should always be kept in good repair
• Keys should be reprogrammed once guests have checked out
• Hotels must comply with the food safety regulations in Nevada
• Paramedics or trained medical personnel should be called in case of a medical problem.
• A plan should always be in place for dealing with emergencies, such as fires
• Compliance with the federal and Nevada anti-discrimination laws.

According to Nevada’s premises liability laws, hotels owe a higher duty of care to guests than they do to trespassers. Trespassers that are injured at a hotel will have a harder time proving that the hotel is actually liable than injured guests would.

Breach of Duty

The vast majority of hotels in Las Vegas do everything they can to ensure the safety of their guests and employees. However, the occasionally breach that duty of care.

A breach typically occurs if a hotel does not exercise a duty with the level of care than an ordinarily prudent and careful individual would exercise while facing the same or similar circumstances.

Causation

To win a negligence claim against a hotel, showing that the hotel dropped the ball isn’t enough. The plaintiff is also required to show that their injuries were caused by the breach of duty. Evidence commonly used to prove causation includes:

• Medical records
• Expert testimony
• Smartphone video and eyewitness accounts
• Video from surveillance cameras located in the hotel
• Clothes worn by the victim (if the accident involved muddy or wet floors)
• Hotels will at time wipe surveillance footage after just a few days, which is why it is so important for accident victims to consult a lawyer immediately about getting copies of the footage before it is erased. Video footage is sometimes the only evidence available showing that a floor was wet at the time the plaintiff slipped on it.

Damages

The final step of proving negligence is for the plaintiff to show that the injury resulted in damages, which refers to money. For instance, a broken arm from a slip-and-fall usually results in the following damages:

• Lost wages from not working
• Doctor’s bills
• Pain and suffering (which though subjective can be estimated by attorneys)
• If a person slips on a wet floor but doesn’t sustain injuries besides momentary embarrassment, that person would have a difficult time proving damages.

What Parties Can Be Named in Las Vegas Hotel Injury Cases?

If the injury is sustained on hotel grounds, the victim will obviously try suing the hotel itself for negligence. Corporations that own hotels usually have deep pockets, but this may work either for or against the plaintiff. After all, they may have the ability to offer massive settlements, but they also have the ability to pay lawyers to prolong the litigation for the longest time possible.

Depending on circumstances surrounding the accident, victims can sue other parties for negligence too. Here are some examples of hotel accidents and potential defendants in the resultant negligence lawsuits:

Slip and Fall Accidents

• The construction company that actually built the hotel
• Individual employees of the hotel that may have been responsible for the hazard
• The interior decorator that may be partly or fully responsible for the slippery surface
• Other hotel patrons that may have been responsible for the hazard

Food Poisoning

• The room service or restaurant workers that may have contaminated the food
• The room service company or restaurant that supplied the food
• The food companies that supplied contaminated ingredients
• The South Nevada Health District for allowing the hotel to slip through the cracks.

Poor Crowd Control That Involves Trampling

• The company that produced the event or concert where the accident occurred
• Hotel security and/or outside security teams for their failure to ensure the victim’s safety
• Defective Elevators
• The elevator maintenance company
• The elevator manufacturer

What Are the Time Limits Within Which You Should File a Claim Against a Hotel?

The statute of limitations in Nevada for bringing a negligence lawsuit is 2 years after the discovery of the injury by the victim.

Victims often realize that they have suffered injuries immediately after the accidents. However, sometimes weeks or even months can go by before the victim discovers a medical condition that the accident caused. Hematomas and stress fractures are examples of silent injuries.

Either way, accident victims need to consult a hotel injury lawyer in Las Vegas within the shortest time possible so that work on the case can start immediately. The longer the victim waits, the less the chance of the lawyer finding surveillance footage and eyewitnesses with sharp memories. Evidence usually fades with time.

How Much Are Hotel Lawsuit Cases Actually Worth?

The initial goal of a personal injury lawyer is reaching a settlement that can cover all the past, current, and future compensatory expenses caused by the Nevada hotel accident. They include:

• Lost wages: Any tips, salary, promotions, and bonuses the victim lost out on due to the injuries
• Medical-related bills: Home health care, hospital stays, rehab, doctor’s appointments, medication, mental health counseling, etc.
• Pain and suffering
• Loss of future earnings: Any tips, salary, promotions, and bonuses the victim will lose out on due to the injuries

Some of the expenses above are easy to prove by producing copies of receipts and bills. However, expenses such as lost future earnings might require the lawyer to project into the future about what the losses are likely to be.

If the case goes to trial, the plaintiff’s lawyers will ask the court for compensatory damages as well as Nevada punitive damages. If hotel personnel are found by the court to have acted in a malicious or reckless manner, the courts can impose punitive damages. The damages are used to punish the hotel and deter other hotel staffers from acting in a similarly malicious or reckless manner.

One benefit of punitive damages is that they usually exceed compensatory damages. Punitive damages can generally be as much as 3 times the compensatory damages. (If compensatory damages are below $100,000 then $300,000 would be the cap).

What If I’m Partly to Blame for the Hotel Accident?

People injured in a hotel may still be eligible for monetary damages even if they were partly responsible for the accident, but this will depend on the circumstances of the case.

It is still possible for accident victims that were partly at fault for their injury to win at trial as long as the defendant was at least 50 percent to blame. The comparative negligence laws in Nevada don’t require accident victims to be perfect to recover monetary damages, rather, they simply cannot be over 50 percent at fault.

Note: Plaintiffs that are partly responsible for their injuries typically receive less monetary damages compared to those that were blameless.

Hotels in Las Vegas are full of opportunities to get hurt. The gyms there are full of heavy equipment that may fall down, the pools are drowning hazards while the bars are hotbeds for drunken brawls.

If a plaintiff sues a hotel after sustaining injuries while partaking in these or other activities, the hotel’s lawyers might try arguing that the plaintiff basically “assumed the risk” and that he/she know exactly what he/she was getting into. A trial court, however, can still hold the hotel liable even if the plaintiff has signed a release waiver if it finds that:

• The plaintiff didn’t accept the risk voluntarily
• The plaintiff didn’t fully appreciate the danger resulting from the risk
• The plaintiff didn’t have actual knowledge of the risk involved in the activity or conduct

Contact McDonald Worley for Your Legal Needs

Casinos and hotels are owned by massive corporations that hire high-powered lawyers as well as risk assessment teams that usually fight fair compensation on legitimate injury claims. If you have sustained injuries, the casino or hotel might offer you a lowball settlement. You shouldn’t accept any settlement from a hotel or casino before talking to a hotel injury lawyer in Las Vegas. Your damages are probably greater than the amount being offered.

Our legal team at McDonald Worley gathers all the evidence require to put pressure on the casino or hotel to do the right thing. We never put up with bullying by employees, risk management departments, or even lawyers to settle if the offer they make doesn’t meet your needs. We will push forward with your case until they agree to negotiate a fair settlement.

When it comes to casino and hotel liability cases, there’s never a “one-size-fits-all” approach. However, we can promise you personal attention as well as aggressively pursuing the maximum possible compensation. We will even fight for you in court if it ever comes to that.

If you have been injured at a casino or hotel, contact us at 877-721-3423 for your free consultation and case evaluation to come up with the best possible strategy for moving forward.