The Stanley Law Offices

Snowmobiling is one of the most popular winter activities in the United States, and practicing personal safety is the key to enjoying it. Nothing ruins a family outing faster than an accident causing property damage, personal injury, or death.

A leading factor in many snowmobile accidents is alcohol consumption. Riding a snowmobile requires quick judgment and fast reflexes, both of which are impaired by just a few drinks. Unsafe speed is another leading factor in most accidents, and speed mixed with alcohol is a deadly combination. Approximately 29% of fatal snowmobile accidents involve alcohol.

Since snowmobiling is a winter activity, you expose yourself to extreme weather conditions, and hypothermia and frostbite become possibilities. Adding alcohol makes things worse, as you might not realize how cold you are until it is too late.

It is not always the person drinking that is the victim of an accident. If you go snowmobiling with others, you will want to ensure those with whom you are traveling are also abstaining from adult beverages. You would not want to become the innocent victim of someone else's drunkenness.

If you or someone you know has suffered from a snowmobile accident involving alcohol, please contact the Stanley Law Offices as soon as possible to ensure that your rights are protected.

Every winter, we take great pains to shovel the snow and ice off the sidewalks in front of our house. The sidewalks are probably never graced with our footsteps after we clear them, since we tend to stay indoors or drive to wherever we need to go. You may wonder at times, why you bother to shovel the pavement at all. The answer is premises law, which could hold you liable if someone walking past your house suffered a personal injury by slipping and falling.

In premises law the owner or manager of a property is responsible for its reasonable upkeep. Visitors using that property expect that the conditions of the premises will not inflict bodily harm during reasonable use, such as walking on the sidewalk.

When deciding who is responsible, our premises liability lawyers will look at the type of visitor who was injured. Visitors are defined as:

• Invitees - people explicitly or implicitly asked onto your property for a commercial or business transaction. If you have a business for example, you are expecting people to come and look at your goods, even if you didn't send out a personal invitation to them.
• Licensees - social guests, typically invited explicitly or implicitly for purposes other than business, such as having a friend over for dinner.
• Trespassers - uninvited guests which have limited, if any, rights, should they suffer personal harm while on your property.

If you have any questions about premises laws, or your obligations and potential liability in personal injury cases, please contact the Stanley Law Offices today for a free consultation.