An injury-causing accident can leave you with steep medical bills, a loss of income during treatment and recovery, and pain and suffering. When the accident happens at a business, you may think they are responsible for your fiscal worries. While this is often the case, it isn't necessarily the whole story. The following guide can help you understand who can be responsible for your injury.

The business owner

The most logical choice of who to sue is the business owner. You only have a case, though, if you can show it was neglect on the part of the owner that lead to your injury. For example, if you hurt yourself doing something you shouldn't have been doing, such as sitting on a table that then broke, then the owner may not be considered responsible. On the other hand, if you were sitting properly in a chair, the chair broke, you may be able to hold the owner responsible.

Outside manufacturers

In some cases, the neglect that lead to the accident is not that of the business owner. In the above example, a broken chair can sometimes be traced back to a faulty product. In this case, it is the chair manufacturer that can be held responsible for your injury and the costs it incurs. If the chair was properly maintained by the business owner and they can prove it, then you won't be able to show neglect with the owner so you will have to instead go to the source.

Service personnel

Depending on the cause of the injury, the actual responsible party could be someone that the business owner hired for a job. For example, if you trip over tools that a contracted handyman left laying around, then the handyman company can be considered at fault. In some cases, the service company doesn't even have to be on site. If the owner can show they hired someone to fix the chair in the example, but the repairman did a shoddy job, then the chair repair company is the one that can be held liable.

Property management or owners

Business owners often don't own the actual retail space they are in. They may be dependent upon the management company or the actual owners to handle some upkeep tasks. In this case, as long as the business owner properly notified property management that something needed repaired, they may not be considered liable. Instead, the management company or owner is the one that showed neglect by not fixing a reported issue in a timely manner.

Fortunately, you don't have to navigate this yourself. Contact a business like Palace Law for more help.