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Kent Premises Liability Lawyer
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If you were hurt on someone else's property in Kent, the law may give you a path to recover. Washington property owners owe their visitors a real duty of care, and when they fail to meet it, they are responsible for the harm that follows.
Goldberg & Loren has handled premises liability cases for 30 years. We work directly with property owners, their insurers, and where necessary their corporate parents to hold them accountable for the conditions they allowed to exist.
Below is a plain-language guide to Washington premises liability law, the duties owed to you depending on why you were there, the deadlines that decide whether you have a case, and what to do right now. None of this is legal advice for any specific case.
Free, confidential case review. No fee unless we recover money for you.
Call (253) 336-5664What Is Premises Liability in Washington?
Premises liability is the area of Washington law that holds property owners (and sometimes tenants, businesses, and managers) responsible for injuries that happen on their property because of an unsafe condition the owner knew about or should have known about.
The key idea is straightforward. If a reasonable property owner would have fixed the hazard, warned about it, or kept people away from it, and this owner did none of those things, the owner can be liable for the injuries that hazard caused.
Premises cases run a wide range. Slip and fall in a grocery store. Trip on broken pavement at an apartment complex. Assault in a poorly lit parking lot. A child drowning in an unfenced pool. A fall down stairs with a missing handrail. All of these are premises cases in Washington.
Who Owes You a Duty, and How Strong Is It?
Washington still uses the traditional common-law framework that categorizes visitors as invitees, licensees, or trespassers. The category controls the strength of the duty owed to you, and it often decides the case.
The Washington Supreme Court reaffirmed this framework in Younce v. Ferguson, 106 Wn.2d 658 (1986), adopting the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 343 for the duty owed to invitees.
| Visitor category | Examples | Duty owed by the property owner |
|---|---|---|
| Invitee | Customers in a store, hotel guests, patients at a medical office, tenants in common areas, anyone the owner invited for business or mutual benefit | The strongest duty. The owner must use reasonable care to inspect the property, discover hidden dangers, and either fix them or warn about them. |
| Licensee | Social guests at a home, neighbors stopping by, anyone the owner permits but did not actively invite for business | Middle duty. The owner must warn of known dangers that the licensee is unlikely to discover, but generally does not have a duty to inspect for unknown ones. |
| Trespasser | Someone on the property without permission | The lowest duty. The owner cannot willfully or wantonly injure the trespasser, with narrow exceptions (children and attractive nuisances). |
Why this matters: If you slipped in the produce aisle at a Kent grocery store, you were an invitee and the store owed you the strongest duty. The defense will often try to recharacterize you as a licensee or trespasser to reduce that duty. The first question we ask in every case is: what was your status when you were hurt?
Common Kent Premises Liability Cases We Handle
Slip and Fall
Water spills, recently mopped floors with no warning sign, leaking refrigeration cases, tracked-in rain, polished entryways. Big-box stores along Kent-Des Moines Road and Pacific Highway South are frequent locations.
Trip and Fall
Broken sidewalks, uneven parking-lot transitions, torn carpet, exposed cords, raised floor tiles, and curb defects. Apartment complexes and aging strip malls are common sites in Kent.
Snow and Ice Falls
Washington property owners are not strictly liable for natural accumulation, but they can be liable when they create the hazard or fail to address an unnatural one. Salting practices, runoff refreeze, and unshoveled walkways all matter.
Stair and Railing Falls
Missing or wobbly handrails, broken treads, code-violating riser heights, and inadequate lighting on stairwells in apartment buildings, hotels, and Kent-area office complexes. Stair cases often turn on building-code expert testimony.
Negligent Security
Assaults, robberies, and shootings on commercial property where the owner failed to provide reasonable security. Common defendants include apartment complexes, hotels, parking garages, and bars and clubs with prior crime history.
Swimming Pool and Spa Accidents
Drownings, near-drownings, drain entrapments, and diving-board injuries. Washington imposes specific fencing and gate-latch requirements on residential and commercial pools. Children get heightened protection under attractive-nuisance doctrine.
Elevator and Escalator Injuries
Misleveling, sudden drops, finger entrapment in escalator combplates, door malfunctions, and inspection-record failures. These cases involve building owners, elevator service contractors, and equipment manufacturers.
Dog Bites on Premises
Washington imposes strict liability on dog owners under RCW 16.08.040. If the bite happened at an apartment complex or business, the property owner may share liability for negligent control of dangerous animals.
Inadequate Lighting
Parking lots, stairwells, walkways, and apartment building common areas with burned-out bulbs or no lighting at all. Inadequate lighting frequently contributes to both fall injuries and assault claims.
Apartment and Landlord-Tenant Injuries
Falls in common areas, mold and air-quality injuries, broken-stair injuries, and security failures at multifamily properties across Kent and South King County. Landlords owe tenants invitee-level duties in the common areas they control.
Big-Box Retail and Grocery Store Falls
Target, Walmart, Costco, Fred Meyer, Safeway, QFC, and similar Kent locations. Corporate defendants have aggressive defense teams, but they also keep extensive incident records and video that we subpoena early.
Falls at Kent Station and Other Public Venues
Mixed-use complexes, public plazas, transit areas, and event venues. These cases sometimes involve multiple property owners (ground lessor, building owner, tenant) and a careful contract review identifies who is actually responsible.
The Washington Rules That Decide What Your Case Is Worth
Four state-law rules drive almost every Kent premises liability case. Understanding them is the difference between recovering full value and leaving money on the table.
RULE 1Three-Year Deadline: RCW 4.16.080(2)
You have three years from the date of injury to file a lawsuit. Premises claims against government property owners (cities, the state, the school district, the transit agency) add a mandatory claim-filing step you must complete before you can sue. Read RCW 4.16.080.
RULE 2Notice: The Owner Must Know or Should Have Known
The owner must have had actual notice of the hazard, or constructive notice, meaning it existed long enough that a reasonable owner would have discovered it. Notice is the single most contested issue in slip-and-fall cases.
In self-service stores, Pimentel v. Roundup Co., 100 Wn.2d 39 (1983), can help even more: where the store's mode of operation makes hazards foreseeable, the injured customer may not have to prove notice at all.
RULE 3Pure Comparative Fault: RCW 4.22.005 and 4.22.070
Washington reduces your recovery by your percentage of fault, but never bars you from recovering. A jury that finds you 40% at fault still allows you to recover 60% of your damages. Many other states cut you off at 50% or 51%. Read RCW 4.22.005.
RULE 4No Statutory Damages Cap
Washington has no legislated cap on non-economic damages in personal injury cases. The Washington Supreme Court struck down the legislature's earlier cap in Sofie v. Fibreboard Corp., 112 Wn.2d 636 (1989), holding it violated the right to a jury trial.
Open and Obvious Is Not an Automatic Defense in Washington
Some states allow property owners to win a case by arguing the hazard was so open and obvious that the visitor should have avoided it. Washington has rejected the strict version of that defense.
Under Tincani v. Inland Empire Zoological Society, 124 Wn.2d 121 (1994), and later cases, an owner still owes a duty even where the hazard is obvious, if the owner should anticipate harm despite the obviousness.
The defense is a fact for the jury to weigh under comparative fault, not a get-out-of-jail-free card.
What You Can Recover Under Washington Law
Washington divides damages into two categories. Both are available in Kent premises liability cases, and neither is capped by statute.
Economic Damages
- Past and future medical care, surgery, rehab, and prescriptions
- Lost wages and loss of earning capacity
- Attendant care, home health aides, and skilled nursing
- Home modifications and assistive devices
- Out-of-pocket expenses (transportation, lodging for treatment)
Non-Economic Damages
- Pain and suffering, past and future
- Emotional distress
- Disfigurement and scarring
- Loss of enjoyment of life
- Permanent disability and impairment
- Loss of consortium (spouse's claim)
Catastrophic premises cases (broken hips in elderly clients, traumatic brain injury from a stair fall, spinal cord injury from a parking-lot assault) often involve life-care planning, future medical-cost analysis, and vocational economists. We build these workups on every serious case.
Punitive damages. Washington does not allow punitive damages in ordinary premises liability cases. The only exceptions are narrow statutory schemes. This is one reason Washington insurers are aggressive about valuing claims at the low end.
Table of Contents
Kent Practice Areas
Special Premises Situations in Washington
Falls on Government Property: Extra Claim-Filing Steps
If you fell at a public facility (City of Kent property, King County offices, a Sound Transit station, a school, a public hospital), Washington's tort claim framework under RCW 4.96 (local government) or RCW 4.92 (state) requires you to file a written claim before suing.
The waiting period after filing the claim is generally 60 days before you can file a lawsuit, and the three-year deadline is paused (tolled) during that wait.
The deadline itself stays at three years, but the claim-filing rules are strict, and a defective or late claim can bar an otherwise valid case. Government claims need early attention for that reason.
Recreational Use Immunity: RCW 4.24.210
Washington gives landowners who open their property for free public recreational use (hiking, camping, fishing, hunting) a limited immunity from injury suits. The immunity has exceptions, including for fee-charged access and known dangerous artificial latent conditions.
If you were hurt on a trail, public park, or land opened for recreation in or near Kent, the analysis is highly fact-specific. Call us before assuming you have no case.
Apartment and Landlord-Tenant Cases
Landlords owe tenants invitee-level duties in the common areas they control (lobbies, stairwells, parking lots, laundry rooms). Inside the rented unit itself, the duty depends on whether the landlord had notice of the condition and a chance to repair it.
Washington's Residential Landlord-Tenant Act (RCW 59.18) adds statutory duties including habitability and repair obligations that often anchor premises claims by tenants.
Your Kent Attorney
George has been practicing law since 1994. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Miami School of Law and earned his undergraduate degree at Emory University. He opened Goldberg & Loren in 1996 to fight for the rights of personal injury victims and has spent the 30 years since doing exactly that.
George is an active member of the Washington State Bar Association. He personally reviews Kent premises liability cases at intake and stays involved through resolution.
What to Do Right Now If You Were Hurt on Someone's Property in Kent
Report the Incident Before You Leave
Tell the store manager, the apartment manager, the property owner, or the responding officer. Ask for a written incident report and a copy of it. Get the report number. Names and contact information of every employee who saw what happened.
Photograph the Hazard Before It Is Fixed
The spill, the broken handrail, the missing tile, the burned-out bulb, the puddle. Take wide shots and close-ups. Photograph the entire scene, including the absence of a wet-floor sign or warning cone if applicable. Time-stamped phone photos are powerful evidence.
Identify and Save Witnesses
Get names, phone numbers, and email addresses of anyone who saw the fall or who saw the condition before or after. Witnesses move, change jobs, and become unreachable. Capture their information while they are still on scene.
Get Medical Care Immediately, Then Keep Going
Gaps in treatment are the single biggest defense argument we see. Even if you feel okay, see a doctor within 72 hours. Symptoms of traumatic brain injury, soft-tissue injury, and internal injury frequently appear days later.
Do Not Give a Recorded Statement to the Property Owner's Insurer
You are not required to. Anything you say will be used to reduce your settlement. Polite refusal is the right answer until you have a lawyer.
Preserve the Surveillance Video
Most Kent commercial properties have cameras. The footage is often overwritten within 7 to 30 days. We send a preservation letter the day we are hired so the video does not disappear.
Call a Kent Premises Liability Attorney Before the 3-Year Clock Runs
Three years is shorter than it sounds. Government property cases can be much shorter. The earlier we get involved, the more evidence we can preserve and the better positioned your case is.
If your fall was at a public facility (City of Kent property, King County, Sound Transit, a state-run building, a public hospital, a school district), Washington requires a formal claim under RCW 4.92 or 4.96 before you can sue. The three-year deadline still applies, but the claim-filing rules are strict and unforgiving, so start the claim process early rather than treating it as a routine three-year case.
How Our Fees Work
We take Kent premises liability cases on contingency. You owe us nothing up front and nothing during the case. If we recover money for you, our fee comes out of the recovery. If we do not recover, we are not paid.
Costs (medical record retrieval, expert witnesses on building codes and security standards, accident reconstructionists, deposition transcripts) are advanced by the firm and reimbursed only out of a successful recovery.
Washington RPC 1.5 requires every contingency agreement to be in writing, and we walk through it with you in plain English before you sign.
Past results. No two cases are the same. Prior settlements or verdicts are not a prediction of what your case will produce. The right way to value a premises case is to look at the medical records, the surveillance video, the notice evidence (sweep logs, incident reports, prior complaints), and comparable Washington verdicts in the same injury category. That is what we do at intake.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Long Do I Have to File a Premises Liability Case in Kent, Washington?
Three years from the date of injury under RCW 4.16.080(2).
If your fall happened on government property (City of Kent, King County, Sound Transit, a state hospital, a school district), you must first file a tort claim under RCW 4.92 or 4.96 and then wait 60 days before you can sue.
The three-year deadline still applies and is paused during that wait, but the claim-filing rules are strict, so do not delay.
What If There Was No Wet-Floor Sign or Warning?
That works in your favor. Washington property owners owe invitees a duty to warn of hazards they know about or should know about.
The absence of a warning sign on a freshly mopped floor, a spill, or a tracked-in rain entrance is evidence the owner failed to meet that duty. We document the absence of warnings as carefully as the hazard itself.
The Store Says They Did Not Know About the Spill. Does That Defeat My Case?
Not necessarily. The store can still be liable if it had constructive notice, meaning the spill was there long enough that a reasonable inspection would have found it.
And in some self-service settings, Pimentel v. Roundup Co., 100 Wn.2d 39 (1983), means you may not have to prove notice at all. Sweep logs, employee schedules, prior incident reports, and surveillance video all bear on the notice question.
I Was Partially at Fault for the Fall. Can I Still Recover?
Yes. Washington uses pure comparative fault under RCW 4.22.005. If a jury finds you 30% at fault and the property owner 70% at fault, you recover 70% of your damages.
There is no 50% bar like in many other states. Even significant comparative fault findings leave meaningful recovery available.
How Much Does a Kent Premises Liability Lawyer Cost?
Nothing up front. We take cases on contingency. If we recover money for you, our fee comes out of the recovery. If we do not recover, you owe us no fee.
Costs of running the case (records, experts, depositions, building-code consultants) are advanced by the firm and reimbursed only from a successful recovery.
What Kinds of Injuries Do Kent Premises Cases Typically Involve?
Broken hips and femurs (especially in older adults), traumatic brain injury from head impacts, herniated discs and back injury, broken wrists and arms from breaking a fall, knee and shoulder injuries, and lacerations requiring surgery.
Catastrophic falls can result in spinal cord injury or permanent disability requiring lifetime care.
Can I Sue If I Fell at a Friend's Home?
Often yes, and you are typically suing the homeowner's insurance, not your friend personally. Social guests are licensees under Washington law, so the homeowner owes a duty to warn of known dangers.
Most homeowners policies include premises liability coverage that handles exactly this situation. The relationship rarely comes apart over a properly-handled claim.
What If Surveillance Video Has Already Been Overwritten?
It hurts the case but does not end it. We use incident reports, eyewitness testimony, employee schedules, sweep logs, work orders, prior-complaint records, and our own expert reconstruction to rebuild the timeline.
Where the video was destroyed after the owner was on notice of the claim, we can sometimes get a spoliation instruction from the court.
How Long Will My Kent Premises Liability Case Take?
Most cases that settle do so in 6 to 18 months. Cases that have to be filed and litigated tend to run 18 to 36 months.
Catastrophic-injury premises cases involving life-care planning and multiple defendants typically take longer because the evidence record is bigger and expert work is heavier.
What If the Property Is Owned by a Corporate Landlord Based out of State?
That is common in Kent and does not affect your ability to recover. Out-of-state property owners doing business in Washington are subject to Washington courts for premises claims arising here.
The case is litigated under Washington law regardless of where the corporate parent is headquartered.
30 Years Fighting for Injury Victims. Free, Confidential Review.
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Free Case Review Call (253) 336-5664Goldberg & Loren · 21620 84th Ave S, Ste 201 D, Kent, WA 98032
Sources:
- Younce v. Ferguson, 106 Wn.2d 658 (1986). Washington Supreme Court adoption of Restatement (Second) of Torts § 343 for the duty owed to invitees.
- Pimentel v. Roundup Co., 100 Wn.2d 39 (1983). Washington Supreme Court constructive notice rule for slip-and-fall cases.
- Tincani v. Inland Empire Zoological Society, 124 Wn.2d 121 (1994). Washington Supreme Court rejection of strict "open and obvious" defense.
- Sofie v. Fibreboard Corp., 112 Wn.2d 636 (1989). Washington Supreme Court damages cap unconstitutional.
- Revised Code of Washington (RCW) Title 4 (Civil Procedure), Title 16 (Animals), Title 59 (Landlord-Tenant). app.leg.wa.gov/RCW
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Older Adult Falls Data. cdc.gov/falls
- Washington State Bar Association. Attorney admission and member status verification. wsba.org
This page is general legal information about Washington premises liability law and is not legal advice for any specific case. Attorney advertising. Reading this page does not create an attorney-client relationship. Past results were obtained in matters with their own facts and law and do not predict the outcome of any future case. Goldberg & Loren operates in Kent through attorneys who are active members of the Washington State Bar Association.
Senior Partner, Goldberg & Loren | Member, Oregon State Bar | Serving clients since 1994 | 30+ years, 20,000+ cases, 98% success rate
Last updated: May 27, 2026
Goldberg & Loren Personal Injury Attorneys
21620 84th Ave S, Ste 201 D
Kent, WA 98032
(253) 336-5664
For most survivors, the hardest part of a case isn't the evidence, it's the decision to speak. When you're ready, our job is to carry the legal weight, guard your privacy, and make the people and institutions that failed you answer for it. You set the pace; we handle the fight.
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