If I trip on a very uneven sidewalk and break my toe, can I sue?

The adage is anyone can sue anyone for anything. Whether or not you will get to court or win is another issue. Personally, I hope you sue, lose and end up paying court costs for the city. Professional victims are among the leaders in the causes of the decay of society.

If the sidewalk belongs to the city, I think you would have had to have done it a lot sooner than 2 weeks. You would have had to document the damage as soon as it happened.

Many variables and issues, though to see if you have a case and even then, hard to say if you could win. Even if you won, actually getting money owed is something that doesn't always happen easily.

Questions that make a difference:

What state are you in?

Who is responsible for that sidewalk? Is it on city or private property?

Is it possible there was a reason that it was uneven?

What were you doing when you tripped? Were you looking where you were running? How fast were you running?

Was there a possible reason that you tripped other than the sidewalk? Ie, maybe you have weak ankles or shins or bones?

Have you ever broken your toe before? How many times?

And finally.. and an important question.. how bad is the damage? How much were the doctor's bills? Did you have to lose work over it? Did you lose a lot of money over it? Does it have a chance to heal properly and not cause pain in the future?

an uneven sidewalk does not equal an unsafe sidewalk. even a perfectly flat sidewalk could break your nose if you trip over your own feet. doesn't mean you'd win the lawsuit because you can't walk straight. rather than sue just go buy some orange spray paint and do the world a favor so no one else trips over it.

AMERICA FUNK YEAH

couch tomato wrote:

an uneven sidewalk does not equal an unsafe sidewalk. even a perfectly flat sidewalk could break your nose if you trip over your own feet. doesn't mean you'd win the lawsuit because you can't walk straight. rather than sue just go buy some orange spray paint and do the world a favor so no one else trips over it.

Good point. In my city, the flatter the siedewalk, the more likely you will fall on it when it gets icy.

I don't know anything offhand about townships per se, but I'd suspect that there's perhaps a sovereign immunity issue here. I.e., when this doctrine applies, one can't sue the state (capital S State - state, city, municipality, federal government, (township?)). But weigh that against something about premises liability, and duty of care to maintain the sidewalk in the condition a reasonable person would expect to find it, etc., etc., and there might be something here. (But probably not, since my gut sense is that the standard a reasonable person would expect to find a sidewalk in is not pancake-flat.)

Before I make this even more unnecessarily complicated, though:

What do you want/what are you asking for? You don't seem to have been injured on this occasion, so you're not looking for actual damages. That would leave something like an injunction - you're asking the court to tell the city to take better care of its sidewalks - and that hardly seems successful.

This is not legal advice, etc., because I'm not a lawyer (graduated two months ago and am mired in Bar prep), but I'd say at the outset that your biggest issue here is coming up with any requested relief.

YOU, op, are what's wrong with our society. Your attitude sickens me.

I know a lady that tripped over uneven pavement on a running/biking path and broke her wrist. With no intention to sue, she contacted the city to tell them what happened. They must have feared a lawsuit because they fixed the broken pavement very shortly after that. This particular patch of pavement had been broken for a couple of years.

Contact the city and make them aware of the sidewalk problem. Maybe they will fix it BEFORE someone breaks a bone.

Nairobi blows wrote:

YOU, op, are what's wrong with our society. Your attitude sickens me.

That's good to know. It helps me sleep better at night.

I suppose the lady who spilled coffee on her lap, burning her thigh, and suing McDonalds for $2.9 million sickens you too?

serious question here wrote:

I suppose the lady who spilled coffee on her lap, burning her thigh, and suing McDonalds for $2.9 million sickens you too?

how does that NOT sicken you?

stop mosop wrote:

serious question here wrote:

I suppose the lady who spilled coffee on her lap, burning her thigh, and suing McDonalds for $2.9 million sickens you too?

how does that NOT sicken you?

It doesn't sicken me because I actually know a few of the facts of that case. Anytime I hear someone mention the McDonald's case as an example of a frivolous lawsuit, I know that person is an idiot. Thanks for identifying yourself.

BS Detector wrote:

The adage is anyone can sue anyone for anything. Whether or not you will get to court or win is another issue. Personally, I hope you sue, lose and end up paying court costs for the city. Professional victims are among the leaders in the causes of the decay of society.

this is the correct answer

perhaps you can enlighten us since you know facts that we do not?

The lawsuit industry is sick.

Jerry: Sorry about that movie-thing. I was joking around.

Kramer: Sorry? Are you kidding? You did me the biggest favor of my life. I spoke to a lawyer, we're suing for millions.

Jerry: Suing? What for?

Kramer: The coffee was too hot.

Jerry: It's supposed to be hot.

Kramer: Not that hot.

The coffee was way hotter than it was supposed to be and she got very severe burns from it. If the coffee had been the right temperature she wouldn't have gotten burned from spilling it

the OP is probably some unemployed loser living off foodstamps, looking for free paycheck. stop running 100 miles a week, give up call of duty, and get a job like the rest of normal society.

anyways we should sue the OP for tripping on a perfectly good sidewalk.

loser.

What if some doofus trips on my sidewalk and bleeds all over it? Can I sue him for clean-up costs?

On February 27, 1992, Stella Liebeck, a 79-year-old woman from Albuquerque, New Mexico, ordered a 49-cent cup of coffee from the drive-through window of a local McDonald's restaurant. Liebeck was in the passenger's seat of her Ford Probe, and her nephew Chris parked the car so that Liebeck could add cream and sugar to her coffee. Liebeck placed the coffee cup between her knees and pulled the far side of the lid toward her to remove it. In the process, she spilled the entire cup of coffee on her lap.[10] Liebeck was wearing cotton sweatpants; they absorbed the coffee and held it against her skin, scalding her thighs, buttocks, and groin.[11] Liebeck was taken to the hospital, where it was determined that she had suffered third-degree burns on six percent of her skin and lesser burns over sixteen percent.[12] She remained in the hospital for eight days while she underwent skin grafting. During this period, Liebeck lost 20 pounds (9 kg, nearly 20% of her body weight), reducing her down to 83 pounds (38 kg).[13] Two years of medical treatment followed.

Liebeck sought to settle with McDonald's for $20,000 to cover her actual and anticipated expenses. Her past medical expenses were $10,500; her anticipated future medical expenses were approximately $2,500; and her loss of income was approximately $5,000 for a total of approximately $18,000.[14] Instead, the company offered only $800. When McDonald's refused to raise its offer, Liebeck retained Texas attorney Reed Morgan. Morgan filed suit in New Mexico District Court accusing McDonald's of "gross negligence" for selling coffee that was "unreasonably dangerous" and "defectively manufactured". McDonald's refused Morgan's offer to settle for $90,000.[5] Morgan offered to settle for $300,000, and a mediator suggested $225,000 just before trial, but McDonald's refused these final pre-trial attempts to settle.[5]

6/10. I wanted to give you zero but apparently everyone believes you're serious because you said this is a serious question.