Premises Liability · Las Vegas
When a property hurts someone,
the defendant is a building.
Las Vegas premises cases are casino cases, resort cases, retail cases, apartment cases. The defendants are buildings and the people who run them.
I have spent thirty-nine years on the other side of those buildings — buying them, selling them, developing them, and reading their plans.
When a property injures someone, the question is almost never did they fall. It's what the property was supposed to be, what it actually was, and who knew.
Most injury lawyers work these files as falls. I work them as buildings — because that is how they get proven and that is how they get paid.
Areas
Cases we handle
Chris Sullivan Law represents people hurt on someone else's property in Las Vegas: casinos, resorts and hotels, retail and commercial properties, and apartment complexes. Premises liability is the law that holds an owner or operator responsible when an unsafe condition they knew about, or should have found, injures someone lawfully on the property.
How I read these cases
Three questions decide a premises case.
01
What was the property supposed to be?
Plans, code, the property's own standards, the manufacturer's spec. Not what the manager says on the phone — what the paper says.
02
What was it actually?
Measurements, photos, video, maintenance logs, prior incident reports. This is the half of the case most lawyers never touch.
03
Who knew, and when?
Notice is where these cases are won or lost. The property either knew or should have known — and the file usually tells you which.
Before anything gets cleaned up
What to preserve
Premises cases are proven with the property as it was — not as it looks after maintenance shows up. Do this the day it happens if you can.
- 01Photos of the exact spot — wide, medium, and close — before anything is cleaned, repaired, or roped off differently
- 02Photos of what caused it: the liquid, the mat, the threshold, the handrail, the lighting, the signage
- 03A tape-measure photo of anything with a dimension — riser height, tread depth, gap, clearance, drop
- 04The name of every employee you spoke with and the time you spoke with them
- 05The incident report number and a copy of the report if they'll give you one
- 06Your shoes, exactly as they were, in a bag — do not clean them
- 07Medical records and the ER discharge paperwork from that day, not weeks later
Common Questions
Premises liability — the questions people actually ask
If yours isn't here, call and ask.