Pittsburgh Slip, Trip, and Fall Attorneys
Free Case Evaluation
Fill out the form below to schedule a free evaluation.
Slip, Trip, and Fall Accidents
Slip, trip, and fall incidents can lead to injuries ranging from minor bruises to severe fractures, head trauma, spinal cord injuries, even death. The attorneys of Lupetin & Unatin can help you determine if you have grounds for a lawsuit and understand your rights to compensation for physical injuries and financial harm like medical expenses and lost wages.
Preventable Hazards That Change Lives in an Instant
A wet floor with no warning sign. An uneven sidewalk outside a big-box store. A set of stairs at a Pittsburgh hospital with a broken handrail. These are the kinds of preventable hazards that end careers, shatter families, and turn ordinary lives upside down in an instant. At Lupetin & Unatin, we have spent decades holding the property owners and corporations responsible for those hazards accountable. As you will see, our results speak for themselves.
Our firm has secured what are believed to be the two largest slip-and-fall verdicts in Erie County history, as well as a $2.1 million jury verdict against Target Corporation in Allegheny County. These were cases that other law firms declined to handle because of how difficult the facts were. We see and approach these cases differently than the average law firm. If you or someone you love was seriously injured in a slip, trip, or fall in Western Pennsylvania, we want to hear what happened.
Our Slip and Fall Results
We do not take slip-and-fall cases lightly, and neither do our results. These are not minor injury cases with modest settlements. The slip and falls that we handle are catastrophic injuries to real people, proven to juries who believed in the facts and held defendants fully accountable.
This was a case with what many lawyers thought were impossible facts to overcome. An unwitnessed slip and fall on ice during an active snowstorm in Erie Pennsylvania. People said we were cray to take this on, but we believed there was a winning story to be told.
Dr. David Irwin was the Chief of Pain Management at UPMC Hamot. In 2014, after completing a late-evening shift, he exited the Surgery Center through a non-public staff entrance. The only option available because the main entrances were locked after hours. The walkway outside that door was covered in snow and ice. He slipped, fell, and suffered severe injuries to his back and shoulder. He developed chronic pain and was never able to return to his career in medicine.
UPMC Hamot disputed the case for years. UPMC saw this case very differently than we did. Brendan Lupetin and Greg Unatin tried the case to a jury in Erie County in 2025. After less than two hours of deliberation, the jury returned a unanimous verdict in Dr. Irwin’s favor: $7.25 million. It is believed to be the largest slip-and-fall verdict in Erie County history.
Dr. John Alonge was an oral and maxillofacial surgeon who had operated at Saint Vincent Surgery Center in Erie for more than twenty years. Beyond his private practice, he volunteered at the Northwest Pennsylvania Cleft Palate Institute, helping children born with craniofacial anomalies. On July 22, 2020, between surgeries, Dr. Alonge walked back into an operating room that had just been wet mopped. There was no wet floor sign. He slipped and fell, injuring his shoulder and back so severely that he was forced to retire three years ahead of schedule.
AHN Saint Vincent offered $150,000 to settle the case. This was not a fair offer. So Brendan Lupetin took the case to trial. During discovery, we uncovered a critical document: an internal incident report showing that the Surgery Center had recognized the hazard of its mopping policy two years before Dr. Alonge fell, yet failed to communicate the required policy change to its custodial staff. The jury found the Surgery Center 100% at fault and awarded Dr. Alonge $3.2 million in damages; this wa twenty-one times the top offer. The verdict was covered by the Erie Times-News, the Legal Intelligencer, and Becker’s Healthcare Review, and until the Irwin case, was the largest slip and fall verdict in Erie County history.
Melissa Horton was a producer for NBC Sunday Night Football who had come to Pittsburgh for the Steelers-Bengals game. Following her routine, she stopped at a Target store to pick up incidentals for herself and her crew. While she was shopping, a soda bottle fell and shattered in an aisle. Target employees chose not to close the aisle — instead, they directed customers around the cleanup zone. They directed Horton toward an area they represented as safe and dry. It had been wet mopped.
When Horton stepped onto the floor, her foot slipped and she did a complete split. The fall caused a complete avulsion of her hamstring tendon. She underwent major reconstructive surgery, spent six weeks in a body brace, required nursing care, and missed multiple NFL playoff games and other sporting events due to her injuries. She developed chronic sciatic pain from post-surgical scar tissue and now walks with a limp.
Target offered $85,000 to settle the claim. Brendan Lupetin tried the case to a jury in Allegheny County. Target argued that Horton had seen the caution cones and chosen to proceed into the cleanup area. The jury rejected that argument entirely, finding Target negligent and Horton not at fault, and awarded $2.1 million in damages — including $1.4 million for past non-economic damages and $700,000 for future non-economic damages. This verdict was featured in Lexis Nexis’ Top Verdicts and TopVerdict.com’s largest jury verdicts in Pennsylvania.
What Is a Slip, Trip, or Fall Case in Pennsylvania?
Slip-and-fall and trip-and-fall cases fall under Pennsylvania’s premises liability law. The core principle is straightforward: people who own or control property have a legal duty to maintain it in a reasonably safe condition. When they fail that duty, and someone is seriously injured as a result, the property owner can be held financially responsible.
The duty a landowner owes depends on the status of the person who was injured. A business invitee (e.g. a customer at a store, a patient at a hospital, a visitor to a commercial property) is owed the highest duty of care. The property owner must regularly inspect for hazards, address known dangerous conditions promptly, and warn visitors of hazards that cannot be immediately fixed. This is the category that applies in most of the cases we handle.
To win a premises liability case in Pennsylvania, you generally need to prove four things: the defendant owned or controlled the property; a dangerous condition existed on that property; the defendant knew or should have known about the dangerous condition; and that condition caused your injuries. The word ‘should have known’ matters. A property owner cannot escape liability by simply claiming they were unaware of a hazard if the hazard was something a reasonable inspection would have discovered.
Common Causes of Serious Slip and Fall Injuries
After handling these cases for two decades, the fact patterns repeat. Floors that have been freshly mopped with no warning sign. Perfect examples are the Alonge and Horton cases. Snow and ice accumulation on walkways that the property owner knew about and failed to address like the Irwin case. Uneven pavement, broken curbs, or crumbling steps on commercial properties. Torn or bunched carpeting in retail stores, restaurants, and hotels. Poor lighting in parking lots, stairwells, and building entrances. Absent or broken handrails on stairways.
What ties these cases together is not the specific hazard, it’s the knowledge. The question a Pennsylvania jury asks is whether the property owner knew or should have known about the dangerous condition. Was this foreseeable? In the Alonge case, that question was answered by an internal incident report the Surgery Center tried to keep hidden. In the Horton case, it was answered by the employees themselves, who directed a customer into a wet area. That is the investigative work we do on every case.
These Are Not ‘Minor’ Cases
Slip-and-fall cases carry an unfair reputation in some corners as low-value, soft-tissue claims brought by opportunistic plaintiffs. That reputation has been aggressively cultivated by the insurance industry and does not reflect what we see in our office. A lot of lawyers hate slip and fall cases. We love them.
Dr. Irwin lost a medical career worth millions of dollars and developed debilitating chronic pain. Dr. Alonge was forced into early retirement after a lifetime of serving the Erie community, including hundreds of hours of volunteer work with children. Melissa Horton had major reconstructive surgery, spent weeks immobilized, missed her career events, and deals with permanent physical limitations every single day.
A serious fall on a negligently maintained property can cause fractures, traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord damage, torn ligaments and tendons, and life-altering nerve injuries. When the injured person is a professional who earns their livelihood on their feet or through the use of their hands and body (e.g. a surgeon, a skilled tradesperson, an athlete, a performer) the economic losses alone can be staggering. We take every case that comes through our door as seriously as the person sitting across from us deserves.
Who Can Be Held Liable in a Pennsylvania Slip and Fall Case?
Liability in a premises case follows ownership and control. Retail stores and big-box chains like Target, Walmart, Home Depot, and hospitals like UPMC and Allegheny Health Network, and similar businesses are responsible for the conditions inside their stores and on adjacent property they control, including parking lots and entryways. Hospitals and healthcare facilities, as both the Alonge and Irwin cases demonstrated, are held to the same standard and cannot hide behind their size or institutional reputation. Commercial landlords, office building owners, and management companies carry responsibility for common areas in the properties they control. Municipalities and government entities can be liable for public sidewalks and roadways, though claims against government entities carry specific procedural requirements and shorter notice deadlines.
One issue that comes up regularly in commercial cases is the independent contractor defense. This is where the property owner claims that a cleaning or maintenance company was responsible for the hazard, not the owner itself. Pennsylvania law scrutinizes that defense carefully. Property owners cannot fully delegate their duty of care to third parties when they retain control over the premises.
What to Do After a Serious Fall
At Lupetin & Unatin, we’ve had to turn down potentially righteous premises cases because the injured person didn’t know what to do after the fall. Here are some important tips to ensure you can prove your case.
Get medical attention immediately, even if you feel like you can push through. The adrenaline response to a fall can mask serious injuries for hours or days. Injuries that go untreated and undocumented are much harder to prove later.
If you are physically able, take photographs of the hazard before it is cleaned up or repaired. Get the names of witnesses. Report the incident to the property owner or manager and ask for a copy of any incident report they prepare. Insist on getting an incident report. At a minimum send a text to someone describing what happened. While sometimes you may be able to settle your claim on your own, beware that insurance companies regularly low ball injured people who are not represented by a lawyer. At Lupetin & Unatin, we want you to be aware you may need an attorney to obtain the key evidence, establish the full extent of your injuries, and if necessary prove your case to a jury if the insurance company makes a frivolous offer of settlement.
Do not give a recorded statement to the property owner’s insurance company before consulting with a lawyer. Insurance adjusters are trained to ask questions in ways that minimize or eliminate the insurer’s liability. They will lead you to say things that hurt your claim. A statement given without legal guidance can damage your case in ways that are very difficult to repair.
Pennsylvania’s Two-Year Statute of Limitations
In Pennsylvania, the statute of limitations for personal injury claims, including premises liability cases, is generally two years from the date of the injury. If you do not file a lawsuit before that deadline, you lose the right to pursue compensation entirely, regardless of how strong your case is. There are narrow exceptions, but you should never count on them. If you were seriously injured in a fall, contact an attorney as soon as possible.
Watch out for the insurance company that strings you along until the statute of limitations expirs.
Talk to a Pittsburgh Slip and Fall Lawyer — Free Consultation
We do not handle every slip-and-fall that comes through the door. In fact, we have to turn most of these cases down for different reasons. We handle the ones where someone was genuinely and seriously hurt, where a property owner or corporation was genuinely at fault, and where we believe we can make a real difference in what happens next for that person and their family. If that sounds like your situation, we want to hear from you.
Lupetin & Unatin is a Pittsburgh-based personal injury and medical malpractice firm. We represent clients on a contingent fee basis — there is no charge for our services unless we recover compensation for you. Our consultations are always free.
Free Consultation — No Fee Unless We Win
Lupetin & Unatin is a Pittsburgh-based personal injury and medical malpractice firm. We represent clients on a contingent fee basis — there is no charge for our services unless we recover compensation for you. Our consultations are always free.
Frequently Asked Questions
To hold a property owner liable in PA, you must generally prove that a “dangerous condition” existed and that the owner was negligent. This involves showing one of three things:
- The owner created the hazard (e.g., a spill or a loose floorboard).
- The owner knew about the hazard and failed to fix it (Actual Notice).
- The hazard existed for long enough that the owner should have known about it (Constructive Notice).
Yes. Pennsylvania follows a Modified Comparative Negligence rule. You can still recover damages as long as you are not more than 50% responsible for the accident.
Note: If a jury finds you were 20% at fault because you were looking at your phone, your final award will be reduced by 20%. If you are found 51% or more at fault, you cannot recover anything.
Generally, the Statute of Limitations for personal injury claims in Pennsylvania is two years from the date of the fall. However, there is a major exception: if you tripped on a sidewalk owned by a municipality or the Commonwealth (like the City of Pittsburgh or PennDOT), you may be required to provide formal notice of your intent to sue within just six months. Missing this window can permanently bar your claim.
While Pennsylvania’s “Limited Tort” and “Full Tort” insurance options usually apply to motor vehicle accidents, they generally do not limit your right to sue for a slip and fall. Even if you have a “Limited Tort” auto policy, you typically maintain your full right to seek compensation for pain and suffering in a premises liability case.
This is a common defense in PA. Property owners often argue they aren’t liable because the hazard (like a giant hole or a bright yellow wet-floor sign) was so obvious that any reasonable person would have avoided it. A personal injury attorney may counter this by looking at “distraction factors” or “attendant circumstances” that may have made the hazard unavoidable despite its visibility.
Evidence in these cases disappears quickly—ice melts, spills are mopped, and surveillance footage is looped over. To protect your rights:
- Report it: Notify the manager or owner and get a copy of the incident report.
- Document: Take photos of the hazard, your shoes, and the surrounding area (look for cameras!).
- Witnesses: Get names and phone numbers of anyone who saw what happened.
- Medical Care: See a doctor immediately, even if you think the pain is minor.
Article
Slip, trip, and fall incidents are common accidents that can occur in various settings, including workplaces, public places, and homes. To reduce the risk of slip, trip, and fall incidents, it is essential to maintain safe environments, implement proper safety measures, raise awareness about potential hazards, and promote education and training regarding fall prevention.
Article
Preventing slip, trip, and fall accidents involves maintaining clean and dry floors, repairing uneven surfaces, providing adequate lighting, implementing proper signage, removing clutter, and encouraging individuals to wear appropriate footwear. Conducting regular inspections and implementing safety measures can help minimize the risk of these accidents.
Article
Slip, trip, and fall accident lawsuits can result in varying jury verdicts depending on the specific details of each case. The verdicts highlighted in this article may not be representative of all slip, trip, and fall cases, as the outcomes can differ significantly based on the unique circumstances involved.