Alaska Elevator and Escalator Accident Lawyer

What an Injured Person's Claim Has to Show Under Alaska Law

An elevator or escalator injury claim usually rests on one of two ideas, or both. Premises liability concerns the responsibility of people who own or control a property for conditions on it that harm someone there. Product liability concerns the responsibility of those who design, make or sell a product, here the elevator or escalator or one of its parts, when the product is claimed to be defective.

A property-condition claim looks at how the building was run: whether an owner or operator kept the equipment in reasonable repair, responded to known problems and warned of hazards. A product-defect claim looks at the machine: whether a door sensor, a brake or a step was designed or built in a way that made it unsafe. How Alaska courts define these duties depends on Alaska's current case law, and the outcome in any case turns on its facts.

Either way, the law asks about a duty, whether it was breached, whether that breach caused the injury, and what harm resulted. An injury on an elevator does not by itself prove that anyone was careless or that the equipment was defective. For an injured person, that means the question is less "was I hurt?" than "what went wrong, and whose role was it to prevent it?"

Alaska's fault rule shapes every one of these claims. Under section 09.17.060 of the Alaska Statutes, in an action based on fault for injury or death, "contributory fault chargeable to the claimant diminishes proportionately the amount awarded as compensatory damages for the injury attributable to the claimant's contributory fault, but does not bar recovery." That rule is explained more fully below.

Who May Be Responsible When an Elevator or Escalator Accident Happens in Alaska

Elevators and escalators in Alaska carry people through hotels, hospitals, airports, office buildings, shopping centers and apartment buildings. Accidents include falls, sudden drops, door-closure injuries, entrapment and misleveling. Misleveling means the car stops above or below the floor, leaving a step or gap a person can trip over. Entrapment means a person is trapped, either inside a stopped car or with a hand, foot or clothing caught in moving parts such as an escalator step or comb. The site's page about escalator accidents covers how these arise on moving stairs.

Depending on the building and equipment, the parties may include:

• the property owner, who owns the building where the equipment runs;
• a building manager or operator, who runs the property day to day;
• a maintenance contractor, a company hired to service, repair and adjust the equipment under a contract;
• the equipment manufacturer or installer, who made or put in the elevator or escalator or a component of it.

Responsibility may rest with one of these parties, with several, or with none, depending on who controlled the equipment, what each agreed to do, and what went wrong. The contract between an owner and a maintenance contractor can matter a great deal, because it may show who was expected to catch a problem. The site's elevator accident lawyer page explains how a manufacturer, installer, maintenance contractor and building owner can each be involved.

When more than one party is at fault, Alaska divides responsibility. Under section 09.17.080 of the Alaska Statutes, the trier of fact considers "both the nature of the conduct of each person at fault, and the extent of the causal relation between the conduct and the damages claimed," and the court enters judgment "against each party liable on the basis of several liability in accordance with that party's percentage of fault." Several liability means each party answers for its own share, so identifying every party involved can affect what a claim can reach.

Why Alaska's Filing Deadlines Can Shape a Claim Early

The main Alaska deadline is in section 09.10.070 of the Alaska Statutes. Except as otherwise provided by law, a person may not bring an action "for personal injury or death" unless the action is "commenced within two years of the accrual of the cause of action." Accrual is the point at which the claim legally arises and the period begins to run. A claim brought after the period ends can be lost. In many accidents the injury is obvious that day; in others, when the claim accrued is itself a question.

Children and some adults are treated differently. Under section 09.10.140 of the Alaska Statutes, if the person entitled to bring the action is under the age of majority, or incompetent by reason of mental illness or mental disability, when the claim accrues, the time of that disability is not part of the time limit. Apart from a sexual-abuse exception in the same section, the period "is not extended in any case longer than two years after the disability ceases." A separate subsection adds that in a personal injury action for a person who was under eight at the time of the injury, "the time period before the person's eighth birthday is not a part of the time limit imposed under AS 09.10.070 (a)." A parent whose child was hurt is dealing with a different clock than an adult would be.

Claims against the state or a local government, such as an accident in a publicly owned building, can involve separate rules that this page does not cover. When a period began to run, and which rule governs, is one of the questions a conversation with an attorney can help sort out.

Whether Partial Fault Ends a Claim: Alaska's Comparative-Fault Rule

Many injured people worry that rushing for a closing door, or looking at a phone on an escalator, ends their claim. In Alaska it does not end it on its own. Section 09.17.060, quoted above, is a pure comparative-fault rule: the injured person's share of fault reduces the damages in proportion, but it does not bar recovery, however large that share is.

If a court or jury found an injured person 20 percent at fault, the compensatory damages awarded would be reduced by 20 percent. The percentages come from the facts found, weighing each person's conduct and how closely it connects to the harm, as section 09.17.080 describes. Where a person was standing, whether a warning was posted, and the equipment's known condition can all bear on that division.

Two landowner immunity statutes, section 09.65.202 of the Alaska Statutes and section 09.65.200 of the Alaska Statutes, concern recreational use of land without charge under a recorded grant of a public recreational use easement as required in AS 34.17.100, and injuries on the unimproved portion of land from a natural condition or recreational entry where the person had no responsibility to pay the owner. Neither applies to intentional, reckless or grossly negligent conduct, section 09.65.202 does not apply if the landowner collects a charge for entry for a recreational activity, and these settings are far from a building's elevator, so whether either could apply depends on the specific facts. For someone hurt inside a building, these statutes are usually a side question; if a property owner raised one, the conditions above are the points an attorney would look at first.

How Alaska's Limits on Noneconomic Damages May Affect a Serious Injury Claim

Economic damages cover losses with a dollar figure, such as medical bills and lost earnings. Noneconomic damages cover harm without a price tag. Section 09.17.010 of the Alaska Statutes limits noneconomic damage claims to "compensation for pain, suffering, inconvenience, physical impairment, disfigurement, loss of enjoyment of life, loss of consortium, and other nonpecuniary damage."

The same section caps those damages. For all claims arising out of a single injury or death, including a loss of consortium claim, the award "may not exceed $400,000 or the injured person's life expectancy in years multiplied by $8,000, whichever is greater." In an action for personal injury, the limit rises to "$1,000,000 or the person's life expectancy in years multiplied by $25,000, whichever is greater, when the damages are awarded for severe permanent physical impairment or severe disfigurement." Multiple injuries one person suffers in a single incident are treated as a single injury for these limits.

For someone with a lasting injury, which limit applies can be significant, and that depends on the medical evidence and the facts established. Whether any damages are awarded, and in what amount, depends on proof of fault, causation and harm.

Why Records From the First Days Matter in an Alaska Elevator or Escalator Accident

Proof tends to come from records created in the first hours and days: medical records from the emergency visit onward, photographs and video of the scene and injury, building surveillance footage, the property's incident report, witness names and contact details, and maintenance and inspection records. Sometimes the equipment or a component, such as a step, door part or sensor, becomes evidence too.

Injured people often keep their own photos, medical receipts, notes and records of missed work. But maintenance logs, inspection records, service contracts and video are usually held by the property owner, the operator or a maintenance contractor, and getting or preserving them can require formal legal steps. These records describe service, repairs and examinations of the equipment; neither an entry nor a missing entry is a finding that anyone was negligent. Because so much of this material sits with others, what was kept early can shape what can later be shown, and whether footage, records or the equipment itself still exist is often among the first questions an attorney raises. The site's page on elevator accident statistics describes what government injury data does and does not show.

When a Family Loses Someone: Alaska's Wrongful-Death Rules

For a family after a fatal accident, Alaska's wrongful-death rule is in section 09.55.580 of the Alaska Statutes. When a death is caused by the wrongful act or omission of another, "the personal representatives" of the person who died may bring the action, if that person could have sued for the injury had they lived. A personal representative is the person appointed to handle the estate of someone who has died. The action "shall be commenced within two years after the death," a period that runs from the death rather than from accrual under section 09.10.070.

Any amount recovered is "exclusively for the benefit of the decedent's spouse and children when the decedent is survived by a spouse or children, or other dependents." If there is no spouse, child or other dependent, the amount is administered as the estate's personal property and is limited to pecuniary loss. The damages are those the court or jury considers "fair and just," limited to the natural and proximate consequence of the wrongful act, and the factors considered include loss of contributions for support and medical and funeral expenses. The section also bars recovery by a person whose felonious killing of the decedent caused the death.

A conversation with our attorney can help a family sort out who may bring the action under Alaska law and how the period applies to their circumstances.