“Labor Omnia Vincit” McKay Law
Falls caused by tripping hazards happen without warning—but the injuries can last a lifetime. If a business or landlord in Bixby, OK allows tripping hazards to exist, people suffer preventable injuries. McKay Law advocates for trip-and-fall victims throughout OK. Trip-and-falls are different from slip-and-falls—trip-and-falls happen when your foot catches on something, sending you into an uncontrolled forward fall. Typical causes include uneven sidewalks and pavement, cracked concrete, raised floor mats, exposed cords or cables, torn carpet, loose tiles, missing or broken stair treads, debris in walkways, parking lot potholes, raised thresholds, and poorly marked level changes. Under Oklahoma premises liability law, owners must to exercise reasonable care to protect visitors from foreseeable trip hazards—but proving they breached that duty takes solid legal work. Establishing liability requires proving the hazard existed, the owner knew or should have known about it, they failed to fix or warn about it, and that failure caused your injuries. Our Bixby premises liability lawyers immediately begin building your case—the physical evidence, video, witnesses, and the property owner’s maintenance history. Many businesses overwrite surveillance footage within 7 to 30 days, so don’t wait. Victims frequently suffer wrist and arm fractures from outstretched hands, head trauma, facial injuries, broken hips, and serious spinal damage—especially serious for seniors. Property owners and their insurers will often try to blame the victim—we know how to counter these defenses. Every client we represent is handled on a contingency fee basis—zero upfront cost. Compensation may cover medical bills, future care, lost wages, lost earning capacity, pain and suffering, and diminished quality of life. Contact McKay Law today for a complimentary evaluation with a Bixby, OK trip and fall accident lawyer who will fight to hold the negligent property owner accountable.
Trip-and-fall accidents happen when a person catches their foot on an obstacle, defect, or uneven surface and falls forward. While slip-and-falls involve sliding, trip-and-falls involve the foot being suddenly halted, typically producing forward falls onto hands, knees, or face. Trip-and-falls cause injuries every bit as devastating as slip-and-falls — particularly wrist fractures, facial injuries, head trauma, and dental damage. Our firm fights for trip-and-fall victims in Bixby and in surrounding communities.
Trip-and-falls and slip-and-falls have different mechanics — and the distinction matters legally:
Trips cause forward injuries — face, hands, knees. Slip-and-falls hit the back and sides.
Oklahoma premises liability uses three classifications, each carrying a different legal duty:
Oklahoma follows modified comparative fault (Okla. Stat. tit. 23, § 13). You can still recover if you are 50% or less at fault, though your share reduces the final award.
Oklahoma generally gives 2 years from the date of the fall to file (Okla. Stat. tit. 12, § 95). Government cases require notice within one year. Trip-and-fall cases demand fast action because surveillance footage is often overwritten within days or weeks.
We get to work immediately to demand preservation of all camera footage, document the hazard with photos, measurements, and expert analysis, pull maintenance logs and prior incident history, work with treating doctors, and treat each matter as trial-ready.
A: Trip-and-falls catch your foot and send you forward; slip-and-falls lose traction and send you backward.
A: Zero upfront. No recovery, no fee.
A: Maybe — it depends. We’d need to investigate who owns the sidewalk and assess the hazard.
A: Standard argument. This defense often fails when the full circumstances come out.
A: No. Refer them to your attorney.
A: Value turns on injury seriousness, treatment, and permanent restrictions. Severity drives value.
A: Government claims follow special procedures. Notice must be given within one year, and damages are capped.
A: 2 years from the date of the fall (Okla. Stat. tit. 12, § 95). Different rules apply for public property.
Trip-and-fall accidents get lumped in with slip-and-falls, but they’re genuinely different cases. Different mechanics, different injuries, different defenses. An attorney familiar with these specific claims treats the case for what it actually is.
People treat the two as synonyms, but in practice they’re distinct injury types.
Slips happen when friction fails — the foot goes one way, the body the other. The body typically falls backward.
Trips occur when a forward step is interrupted. The body pitches forward.
These different falls cause different harm.
Trips frequently produce:
Trip hazards have a specific profile:
Trip-and-fall claims require establishing several elements:
Minor irregularities don’t necessarily support liability. Courts often look at the size of the hazard. Very minor irregularities may not support a case in some jurisdictions, while anything over an inch typically does.
Actual or constructive notice drives most cases.
Trip-and-falls have a unique notice advantage compared to slip-and-falls. Slip hazards can be momentary. Trip hazards tend to have substantial history. The notice element is often stronger in trip cases.
Causation must be established. Causation challenges are common when the cause isn’t immediately apparent.
Medical proof of harm.
The go-to insurance argument. Defendants claim the hazard was visible and the plaintiff should have seen it. How this plays out depends on the jurisdiction, especially when the conditions made the hazard hard to see.
“You should have been looking down”. Shared-fault arguments may impact damages, they rarely eliminate viable claims.
“Sidewalks aren’t perfect”. Whether this defense applies depends on the size of the displacement.
“You’ve been here before”. This argument has weaknesses.
Property owners often repair the defect within days. Pictures with a coin or ruler for scale provide the best proof.
Get an incident report on file. If no record is made, the case becomes harder to prove.
Other customers, neighbors, or employees who saw the fall strengthen the case significantly.
Other fall reports prove the hazard was known. Your attorney can pursue this through discovery.
Adrenaline masks injury. Quick medical attention locks in the injury connection.
Trip-and-fall liability depends on where the fall occurred:
Recoverable losses include emergency room and hospital costs, physical therapy and rehabilitation, missed work, permanent occupational limitations, non-economic damages, and impact on relationships where applicable.
Premises liability lawyers work on contingency. Case reviews cost nothing.
The hazard often disappears within days. Without photographs taken at the time, the case can become very difficult to prove. Camera evidence has limited retention. OK’s statute of limitations with shorter timelines for some defendants creates time pressure. Contacting a Bixby trip-and-fall attorney quickly protects the evidence and the claim.
An unmarked step doesn’t look like much — until your toe catches it and the ground rushes up to meet you. Trip-and-fall injuries happen in an instant, but the damage often lasts for years: broken wrists from bracing on impact, fractured hips, dislocated shoulders, concussions, knocked-out teeth, and facial injuries that demand reconstructive surgery. Property owners — whether they run a grocery store — have a legal obligation to maintain their walkways, parking lots, entrances, and floors in safe condition, and to alert visitors about hazards they can’t reasonably fix right away. When they skip that duty, people get hurt. At McKay Law, we uncover how the hazard came to exist, how long it had been there, whether anyone reported it, and what the property owner did — or failed to do — about it.
The insurance company’s first move in a trip-and-fall claim is almost always the same: blame you. They’ll argue you weren’t watching where you were going, that the hazard was open and obvious, that your footwear was wrong, or that you were distracted by your phone. We’ve heard it all, and we know how to dismantle it. When you come into the McKay Law family, we act quickly to lock down surveillance footage, incident reports, inspection logs, prior complaints, and witness statements before they can vanish. We demand compensation for emergency room visits, surgeries, dental and reconstructive procedures, physical therapy, mobility aids, prescription costs, future medical care, missed paychecks, and the daily hardship that follow a fall that should have never happened. Phone us today at (866) 679-9651 or reach out online to schedule your free consultation and get a firm that takes these cases seriously fighting for you.
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