Slip and fall lawyer in Tampa and Tampa Bay

A fall in the Tampa Bay area

People fall in grocery aisles, restaurant entrances, hotel lobbies, apartment stairwells and shopping-center parking lots every day. Most of those falls do not become legal claims. The ones that do usually share one feature: the property owner knew, or should have known, about a danger and did not deal with it.

Our Tampa office, at 1600 E 8th Ave, Suite A200, Tampa, FL 33605, meets people injured in falls by appointment, in English or Spanish. The consultation is free and confidential. For how the rules apply across Florida, see our statewide slip and fall page.

Short answer: for a fall caused by a spill or similar substance in a Florida business, you generally must prove the business knew or should have known about it. Photographs, an incident report, witness names and a request to save camera footage are the first things to secure.

Notice: the point most Tampa cases turn on

Section 768.0755 of the Florida Statutes covers falls on a transitory foreign substance in a business establishment. The injured person must prove the business had actual or constructive knowledge of the condition and failed to use ordinary care to keep the premises reasonably safe. Constructive knowledge can be shown if the condition existed long enough that the business should have found it, or if it occurred often enough to be foreseeable.

In practice, that makes these items valuable:

• the store's cleaning and inspection logs for that day;
• staffing and the location of employees before the fall;
• video that shows how long a spill was there and who walked by;
• earlier incident reports for the same area.

Footage is often overwritten within days. A written preservation request from a lawyer can go out quickly.

Local settings where falls happen

• Shopping centers and big-box stores, where spills, leaks near entrances and wet floors during rain are common.
• Restaurants and bars, where spilled drinks and wet floors are everyday hazards.
• Apartment and condo communities, where stairs, railings, lighting and breezeways are the owner's responsibility.
• Hotels and event venues, especially pool decks and lobbies.
• Parking lots and garages, where potholes, uneven pavement and poor lighting can cause falls.

Different property types can bring different rules. Falls at a workplace may also involve workers' compensation, which has its own rules.

First steps after a fall

1. Get medical care. Hips, wrists, backs and heads are commonly injured.
2. Tell a manager, the landlord or security that you fell, and ask for the incident report in writing. Ask for a written report and a copy.
3. Photograph the hazard, the area, the lighting, signage and your shoes.
4. Get witness names and phone numbers.
5. Ask whether there are cameras and who can preserve the footage.
6. Keep your shoes and clothing as they were.
7. Do not sign anything or give a recorded statement to the insurer before getting advice.

Hospitals near Tampa Bay

For serious fall injuries, such as broken hips, head injuries and spinal injuries, Florida's list of designated trauma centers (updated July 23, 2026) includes the following in the counties our Tampa office covers:

Seeing a doctor promptly also creates a record linking your injury to the fall, which is what an insurer will look for first.

Where a case would be filed

Slip and fall lawsuits are filed in the court for the county where the fall happened. Hillsborough County is in the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit; Pinellas and Pasco in the Sixth Judicial Circuit; Polk in the Tenth Judicial Circuit. Claims up to $50,000 can be heard in county court and larger ones in circuit court. The usual filing window is two years from the date of an incident after March 24, 2023 (Fla. Stat. § 95.11). See our deadline guide.

Fault can be shared

Property owners often argue that the hazard was obvious or that the injured person was not paying attention. Florida compares fault: in most negligence cases, a person found more than 50% at fault generally cannot recover, and a smaller share reduces the award. Our comparative fault guide explains.

The counties around our Tampa office

The seven counties this office is nearest to had about 4,734,037 residents in the 2020 Census, spread across Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Hernando, Manatee, Sarasota and Polk. The larger communities, with straight-line distances, are below.

Evidence that tends to disappear first

Slip and fall evidence is fragile. A wet floor is mopped within minutes, shoes are washed, a stairwell railing is repaired, and the video that would have shown the whole thing is overwritten. After a fall in Hillsborough, Pinellas or Pasco, the most useful steps are the simplest: take photographs before anyone cleans up, ask for the incident report, and get the name of the person who took it.

Medical care and the paper trail

A fall can injure the hip, wrist, shoulder, back or head, and some symptoms show up the next day. Describe each one at your first appointment, even if it seems minor. Follow-up care matters too: insurers read gaps in treatment as proof that an injury was not serious. If you cannot afford to wait for a specialist, tell your doctor so records show why.

What a claim can include

A premises claim can include medical bills, lost income, the cost of future care, and the effect of the injury on daily life. Each of those needs documentation, such as bills, pay records and a plain description of what you can no longer do the way you could before. Keep a short daily note; it is more convincing than memory a year later.

Landlords, hotels and stores are different defendants

A grocery store, a landlord and a hotel owe different duties in different circumstances, and each has different insurers and different records. That is one reason it helps to talk to a lawyer before you decide who to notify and what to say.

Visit or call

Other Tampa pages: personal injury, car accidents and truck accidents.

General information, not legal advice. Reading this page does not create an attorney-client relationship, and every case depends on its own facts. For qualifying personal injury matters the firm works on a contingency-fee basis, so attorney fees are not collected unless there is a recovery. Last updated: 2026-10-16.

View all locations →