Alabama Elevator and Escalator Accident Lawyer

How Alabama Law Looks at an Elevator or Escalator Injury

If you were hurt, the first question is usually not what happened but which kind of claim it is, because that decides whose conduct gets examined. Two legal theories usually frame these injuries, and either or both may be in play in an Alabama case. Premises liability is the responsibility a property owner or operator may carry for the condition of a place it controls, including its elevators and escalators. Product liability is the responsibility a maker or seller may carry when a defect in the equipment itself is part of what caused an injury.

A few terms come up often. Misleveling means an elevator car stopping above or below the floor, so the car floor and the building floor do not line up. Entrapment means being caught or trapped, whether stuck inside a stalled car or with a hand, foot or clothing caught in a moving part. A common carrier is a business that carries the public for hire; whether and how that idea applies to an elevator depends on Alabama's current law, which the statute pages on this page do not set out.

Alabama's rules on fault and damages are its own. Rules from other states, including those described on the California elevator injury page, do not carry into an Alabama case. Under either theory, the law asks about a duty, a breach of it, causation and damages, or about a defect and causation; an injury alone does not prove anyone was at fault. For an injured person, that means the claim rests on showing why the accident happened, not only that it did. Which theory fits depends on who controlled the equipment and what failed, and that is a question a conversation with our attorney can help sort out. The broader picture appears on the site's elevator accident lawyer page.

Where and How These Accidents Happen in Alabama

If your injury happened in a hotel, shopping mall, apartment building, office building, airport or hospital, the place and the way it happened both bear on what comes next. The mechanism varies, and so do the questions it raises.

A sudden drop or free-fall happens when a car moves down unexpectedly, sometimes a short distance, sometimes farther. A door can close on a person stepping in or out. Misleveling can cause a trip or fall at the threshold, which matters especially for older riders, people using walkers or wheelchairs, and hospital patients. Entrapment can mean hours in a stalled car, or a body part caught in a door or gap. On escalators, injuries often involve entanglement of clothing, shoes or fingers, a sudden stop, or a fall on the moving steps. The site's page on how escalator accidents happen covers those mechanisms in more depth, and the elevator accident statistics page summarizes national government data.

The setting and the mechanism together shape who may owe a duty. A hotel guest, a mall shopper, an apartment tenant and a hospital patient each stand in a different relationship to the property, and a door failure raises different questions than a drop. For someone who was hurt, this is why two accidents that look alike can lead to claims against different parties. The records that usually matter at this stage include medical records, photos and video, any incident report the building made, and the names of anyone who saw what happened.

Who May Be Responsible for Your Injury

If you are wondering who answers for what happened, the central question is usually who controlled and cared for the equipment. Several kinds of parties may be involved.

The property owner or building operator generally controls the premises and may owe a duty to keep them reasonably safe for the people who use them. In a hotel, mall, apartment complex, office tower, airport terminal or hospital, that may be the owner, a management company or a tenant that runs the space.

A maintenance contractor is a company hired to service, repair or inspect the equipment on a regular basis. Its responsibilities usually come from its contract with the owner, and what it agreed to do can matter to whether it owed a duty to riders.

The equipment manufacturer may be involved where a defect in the elevator or escalator itself contributed to an injury. A component-part manufacturer, the maker of a specific part such as a door sensor, a brake or a step, may be involved where that part failed.

More than one party may share responsibility: an owner may control the building while a contractor maintains the machine and a manufacturer designed it. For an injured person, leaving out a party who bore part of the responsibility can affect what a claim is able to reach. Whether any of them is responsible depends on the facts: who had control, what each was supposed to do, what failed and why. Facts that help identify the parties include who owns the building, who posted the inspection certificate or service notices, and whose name appears on incident paperwork. Sorting out that list is one of the things a conversation with our attorney can help with.

When the Clock Runs, and What Changes If the Building Is City-Owned

Section 6-2-38 of the Code of Alabama sets the general period for an injury claim. Subsection (l) of section 6-2-38 of the Code of Alabama provides: "All actions for any injury to the person or rights of another not arising from contract and not specifically enumerated in this section must be brought within two years." The same section, in subsection (p), allows an action to be commenced again within one year where a plaintiff's judgment is arrested or reversed on appeal, even if the period has meanwhile run.

Wrongful death has its own rule under section 6-5-410 of the Code of Alabama, covered in the wrongful-death section below.

Children are treated differently. Under section 6-2-8 of the Code of Alabama, if the person entitled to bring the action is below the age of 19 years, or insane, at the time the right accrues, he or she has three years, or the period allowed by law if it is less than three years, after the disability ends to commence the action. No disability extends the period beyond 20 years from the time the claim accrued, and a disability that did not exist when the claim accrued does not suspend the period unless the law expressly says so.

Where a city or town owns or operates the building, an earlier step applies. Section 11-47-23 of the Code of Alabama states that "Claims for damages growing out of torts shall be presented within six months from the accrual thereof or shall be barred." Presenting the claim is a separate requirement, not a substitute for a lawsuit. Claims involving the State itself depend on Alabama's current law.

Which period applies depends on who the defendant is, whether a minor or a death is involved, and when the claim accrued. If you are trying to work out which of these rules fits, a case evaluation with our attorney can help identify the period that applies.

What an Injury Claim May Recover in Alabama

If you are facing medical bills and lost pay, the losses a claim may address fall into two broad groups. Economic losses are the ones with a bill or paycheck attached, such as medical expenses and lost earnings. Non-economic losses, such as pain and suffering, are harder to put a number on but are still part of what an injury cost you. What the law may allow in a given case depends on causation, the nature of the injury and the kind of action brought.

Punitive damages are a separate category, meant to punish conduct rather than repay a loss. Section 6-11-21 of the Code of Alabama limits them. Subsection (a) provides that, except as the section states, "no award of punitive damages shall exceed three times the compensatory damages of the party claiming punitive damages" or a fixed dollar sum named in the section, "whichever is greater." The section sets a separate limit for civil actions for physical injury, again three times compensatory damages or a fixed sum, whichever is greater, and a different limit where the defendant is a small business, defined as a business with a net worth of two million dollars or less at the time of the occurrence. The fixed sums are adjusted at three-year intervals under the Consumer Price Index.

The section also states that it does not apply to actions for wrongful death or for intentional infliction of physical injury, that it does not apply to class actions, that a defendant is liable only for punitive damages commensurate with its own conduct, and that the jury may not be told about these limits. It creates no right to punitive damages. For an injured person, this means any punitive award is tied to the size of the compensatory damages and to which defendant is involved, so the cap that applies can depend on whether the defendant is a small business. Whether any category is available depends on the facts and the proof, which a conversation with our attorney can help weigh.

The Records That Can Make or Break an Alabama Claim

If you are pursuing a claim, the records are how each part of it gets shown: who owed a duty, whether it was breached, whether that caused your injury, and what the injury cost.

Inspection and maintenance records show when the equipment was examined, serviced or repaired, and by whom. They are factual documents. A record of a repair, or of an inspection, is not by itself an allegation or a finding that anyone was negligent; whether records show a breach of duty depends on the facts and the standard that applies.

Incident reports made by the building or operator record what someone wrote down at the time, though an incident report does not establish what caused an injury. Video from the elevator cab or building cameras may show the event itself. Medical records document the injury and treatment. Witness names and contact information let others describe what they saw. Photos of the scene, the equipment and visible injuries capture conditions as they were.

Injured people and families often gather what they can early: their own photos, discharge papers, a copy of any report, and the names of people who were there. Records held by the owner or a contractor are usually in their hands, not the injured person's. That is why who keeps what matters: the documents that may show what failed are often ones an injured person cannot reach alone, and how to seek them is something a conversation with our attorney can help clarify.

When a Family Loses Someone in an Elevator or Escalator Accident

When an elevator or escalator accident in Alabama ends in a death, the family is grieving and also facing rules few people have seen before. Under section 6-5-410 of the Code of Alabama, the action is commenced by a personal representative, meaning the person appointed to act for the estate of the one who died, often an executor named in a will or an administrator appointed by a court. Family members do not bring the claim directly in their own names.

The section allows the personal representative to recover "such damages as the jury may assess" for the wrongful act, omission or negligence that caused the death, provided the person who died could have brought an action if the act had not caused death. The action must be commenced within two years from and after the death. The damages recovered are not subject to the debts of the person who died and are distributed according to the statute of distributions. The action may be filed only in a county where the person who died could have brought the action, under the venue sections the statute names. The punitive damages limits in section 6-11-21, described above, do not apply to wrongful-death actions.

For a family, this means two practical questions arrive together: who will serve as personal representative, and how that fits within the time the statute allows. Both are questions a conversation with our attorney can help clarify.