South Florida Personal Injury Lawyers Blog
Last updated August 28, 2026 · Reviewed by Elizabeth Estrada
Almost every Florida slip and fall case is fought over how long a spill sat on the floor before someone stepped in it. Florida Statute § 768.0755 contains a second way to prove the same element, and it requires no evidence of timing at all.
The statute makes an injured person prove that the business establishment had actual or constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition and should have taken action to remedy it. Constructive knowledge is knowledge the law attributes to a business because a reasonably careful business in the same position would have found the hazard. Subsection (1)(b) allows that to be shown by proving the condition occurred with regularity and was therefore foreseeable. A case about a cooler that leaks every week does not depend on when this particular puddle formed. Our Florida premises liability attorneys reach for that route more often than the timing one.
Two Independent Routes, Not One Rule With Two Parts
Florida Statute § 768.0755(1) lists the routes separately, and either one satisfies the element on its own. Subsection (1)(a) is the familiar one. It permits circumstantial proof that the dangerous condition existed for such a length of time that, in the exercise of ordinary care, the business establishment should have known of the condition. That is the argument built from how far a spill had spread, whether cart tracks ran through it, and whether the edges had begun to dry.
Subsection (1)(b) asks a different question entirely. Rather than how long this hazard lasted, it asks how often this hazard happens. A condition that occurs with regularity is foreseeable, and a business that knows a hazard recurs cannot claim surprise the twentieth time it appears.
What a Recurring Hazard Case Looks Like
Some hazards are events and some are patterns. A shopper dropping a jar is an event, and only the timing route reaches it. A refrigerated case that sheds condensation onto the tile every morning is a pattern. So is a produce misting system that overflows, a roof that leaks in the same corner during the rainy season, and an entrance that floods whenever an afternoon storm blows through and the mats are not changed.
Florida Statute § 768.0755(2) preserves the ordinary common-law duty of care alongside the statute, which matters when the hazard is a permanent feature of the property rather than a transitory substance. Cracked flooring, a broken handrail, and an unlit stairwell are not transitory foreign substances and are governed by that common-law duty rather than by this section.
Why the Second Route Survives When the First One Dies
The two routes fail at different times, and that is the practical reason to plead both. A timing case lives on surveillance video and the sweep log from the shift when the fall happened. Retail systems commonly overwrite footage in days, and once it is gone the timing argument is usually gone with it.
A regularity case draws on records that are not confined to the day of the fall. Prior incident reports for the same location, repair tickets for the same cooler, vendor service history, and testimony from employees about how often they mop that spot all remain available long after the video has cycled. Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada has handled premises claims across Miami-Dade, Broward, and Collier Counties since 1976, including a $6.5 million negligent security recovery, and the prior-incident question is the first one we ask. The same evidence pattern drives a Florida negligent security claim, where what a property knew about earlier crimes decides the case.
Finding Out Whether the Hazard Had a History
If a hazard that hurt you had hurt someone else before, that history exists somewhere in the property’s records, and it does not surface without a request. Friedman Rodman Frank & Estrada has represented injured people across South Florida since 1976. Call (305) 448-8585 or contact our premises liability attorneys for a free consultation. We advance the costs of investigating the claim and there is no fee unless we recover.