Crist signs bill limiting Fla. slip-fall suits

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Charlie Crist has signed a bill that will make it harder to win slip-and-fall lawsuits against Florida businesses.

Crist signed it into law Wednesday, and it goes into effect July 1.

The new law will require victims to prove that a business knew or should have known a dangerous condition had existed for a sufficient time to have it fixed or removed -- or that it was a foreseeable hazard.

It will undo a 2001 Florida Supreme Court ruling that removed a similar requirement from state law.

That decision came in the case of a woman who slipped and fell in a Publix grocery store on a piece of a banana.

The new law is a lobbying win for businesses and a loss for trial lawyers.

back to Legal News