Fell on someone else's property? Pick your state and see what your case is worth.

A slip and fall lawyer works on your side of that claim, and in most states you have two or three years to bring it. In 25 states the deadline is two years and in 16 states it is three. The deadline table lists every state, with the statute linked.

What a slip and fall lawyer checks first

Three things decide whether a fall is a case. First, there was a real hazard: a spill, ice, a broken step, a torn mat, a dark stairway. Second, the owner knew about it or should have found it in time. Third, the fall hurt you badly enough to need treatment.

The second point is where most claims are won or lost. A grape that hit the floor ten seconds before you stepped on it is not the store's fault. A puddle under a leaking cooler that staff walked past for an hour usually is. How to prove a slip and fall case explains each part.

Falls are not rare or minor. About 37 percent of older adults who fall report an injury that needed medical care or kept them from normal activity for a day, according to the CDC. Falls also cause 83 percent of hip fracture deaths among older adults.

What cases like yours pay

No state publishes an average settlement. The best public number is federal: in a 2005 study of state court trials, winning premises liability plaintiffs got a median award of $98,000. Premises cases made up 11 percent of all injury trials that year.

Most fall cases never reach a jury. They settle for an amount built from the medical bills, the lost pay, and a multiple for pain, then cut by the fault rule. A $10,000 hospital bill with a broken wrist is a very different claim from a $600 urgent care visit. The settlement calculator does the math for your state, and what slip and fall cases pay goes injury by injury.

How long you have to file

Most states allow two or three years from the fall. Kentucky and Tennessee are the shortest at one year, and Maine, Minnesota and North Dakota allow six. Your exact date and its statute are on your state page.

Government property changes everything. A fall on a city sidewalk or in a public building can need a written notice first. That notice is due within 90 days in New York or New Jersey, 120 days for a Michigan highway, and six months in Texas, California and Georgia. Miss it and the claim against the government can be gone, even though the general deadline is years away.

What a lawyer costs you

A slip and fall attorney is paid from the money they recover, not from your pocket. That is called a contingency fee, and it is often about one-third. If there is no recovery, there is no fee. Michigan caps the fee in injury cases at one-third by court rule, and New Jersey caps it at one-third of the first $750,000.

Ask for the fee agreement in writing before you sign. The national ethics rule for lawyers requires a written contingency agreement that says whether costs come out before or after the fee. What a slip and fall lawyer costs shows the math on a $30,000 case.

Four states punish any fault

In Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia the old rule of contributory negligence still applies. If the jury finds you even a little to blame, it can bar the whole claim. If you fell in one of those states, expect the insurer to ask what you were looking at and what shoes you wore. Talk to a lawyer before you answer those questions.

Everywhere else, a share of blame only lowers the award. 10 states follow pure comparative fault, where you collect something even at 90 percent fault. The rest set a bar at 50 or 51 percent.