Q: Are apartment owners liable if their employees forget to lock the pool gates and someone gets hurt
A:
Apartment owners can be held liable if their employees neglect to lock pool gates, leading to an injury, based on principles of premises liability and negligence in employment.
Apartment owners have a legal duty to maintain their property in a safe condition, which includes securing pool areas. If an employee's negligence results in an unsecured pool area and subsequent injury, the owners might be liable under premises liability laws for failing to ensure safe premises. This could also extend to negligence in employment, including negligent hiring, training, or supervision if it can be shown that the apartment management knew or should have known about an employee's negligence regarding safety protocols. If there's a recurring issue or lack of training, this strengthens a claim against the owners.
The foreseeability of harm due to an unsecured pool is high, particularly involving children or non-swimmers, which could directly link negligence to the owner's liability.
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A:
Maybe if the failure to lock the gate was negligent and the injury was foreseeable. The trier of fact will have to allocate responsibility for the injury among all culpable parties, including the person who was injured. If the person injured was a child, the child likely would not be allocated a percentage of responsibility but the child's parents, or other adult, who was responsible for the care of the child likely would be allocated some percentage of responsibility, the amount of which would depend on the facts and circumstances of the case.
If the person injured was a mentally competent adult, that adult would likely be allocated a greater percentage of responsibility than the apartment owners because, in order for the unlocked gate to be a proximate cause of the adult's injury, the adult would necessarily be someone who is not supposed to have access to the pool. If the injured person's percentage of responsibility is greater than 50%, it bars any recovery against the apartment owners as a matter of law.
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