Slip and Fall in Standing Water at a Retail Store

Attorney Answer

You may well have a claim — but in Kentucky you have only one year to bring it, one of the shortest deadlines in the country, and the clock is already running.

KRS 413.140(1)(a) requires an action for an injury to the person of the plaintiff to be commenced within one year after the cause of action accrued. Most states allow two or three years. People who assume they have time to "see how it heals" before calling anyone lose Kentucky claims outright, and no adjuster is going to remind you.

On the merits, the case is not simply that you fell. It turns on the water: where it came from, how long it sat there before you walked through it, whether anyone mopped it or put out a cone, and whether it was near an entrance where tracked-in rain is foreseeable. Kentucky's rules about who has to prove what in a retail slip-and-fall are not the same as in every other state, and that is worth having a Kentucky lawyer pin down early, because it drives which evidence matters most.

One thing in your favor: Kentucky reduces your recovery by your own share of fault rather than barring it. If the store argues you were looking at your phone, that can shrink the claim — it does not automatically end it.

What you can do

1. Get medical treatment now, and tell the provider you fell on a wet floor at the store. The first written description of how it happened follows the case for years. 2. Report the fall to a store manager and ask for the written incident report and its number. Ask for a copy in writing. 3. Photograph the exact spot, the water, the presence or absence of cones or mats, your shoes and clothing, and the entrance area. 4. Write down the names of any employees or customers who saw the water or the fall. 5. Send the store a written demand — or have a lawyer send one — to preserve the surveillance video for that entrance and time window. These systems commonly overwrite in weeks. 6. Keep every bill, receipt, prescription, and note taking you off work. 7. Talk to a Kentucky injury lawyer well before the one-year mark, and do not give the store's adjuster a recorded statement first.

⏱ Time limits apply. KRS 413.140(1)(a) gives one year from the date the claim accrued. Exactly when your year started depends on your specific facts, so have a Kentucky lawyer confirm it — and do not assume you have longer.