Slip and Fall Lawyer in Jonesboro, AR Hazards, Evidence and Injury Claims

Whether the fall is a premises claim at all

Going down on somebody's floor does not create a claim by itself. Arkansas courts start narrower. A property owner owes an invitee ordinary care to keep the premises in a reasonably safe condition, the owner is not an insurer of anyone's safety, and liability has to rest on negligence. The duty to warn is narrower still: it reaches defects in the nature of hidden dangers, traps, snares and pitfalls, meaning conditions known to the owner that an invitee would not spot while paying ordinary attention. Where the danger is known or obvious, no warning is owed at all.

Proof runs down one of two roads. Either the substance was on the floor because of the owner's own negligence, or it sat there long enough that the owner knew or reasonably should have known about it and did not use ordinary care to clear it. That second road is why the length of time matters more than the severity of the bruise. A mop schedule, a work order, a prior complaint or a camera clock can supply it; a description written from memory six weeks later cannot.

The three-year clock, and the shorter one hiding behind it

Negligence in this state runs on the three-year list in Arkansas Code § 16-56-105, which covers actions founded on a liability expressed or implied. Three years is generous compared with most of the South, and it lulls people. If any part of the story involves treatment rather than the floor, § 16-114-203 cuts the period to two years and starts it at the wrongful act. Where a fall ends in death, § 16-62-102 gives three years from the date of death and one year from any nonsuit.

If the property belongs to the state, the case leaves the courthouse

Article 5, § 20 of the Arkansas Constitution is one sentence long: the State of Arkansas shall never be made defendant in any of her courts. In 2018 the Supreme Court applied that literally in Board of Trustees of the University of Arkansas v. Andrews, holding a legislative waiver of immunity repugnant to the clause. So a fall on a state campus, and Arkansas State University is a state institution, does not begin with a complaint at all.

It begins at the Arkansas State Claims Commission, which § 19-10-204 gives exclusive jurisdiction over claims against the state and its agencies and institutions. The commission charges no filing fee and requires no attorney, the agency answers within thirty days of receipt, and a contested award is held forty days for reconsideration or appeal. Two numbers matter most. Under § 19-10-209 the claim must be filed inside the same period a court action would have, and under § 19-10-215 the commission may not pay more than $15,000 without referring the claim to the General Assembly for approval and an appropriation. Counties, cities and school districts sit outside that system entirely, so a municipal sidewalk stays in circuit court.

Which Craighead County courthouse takes the filing

The county has two county seats, Jonesboro and Lake City, an arrangement shared by only a handful of Arkansas counties. The Second Judicial Circuit's administrative plan describes six counties and nine courthouses, and it splits the work here by district. In the Eastern District at Lake City every civil and criminal case goes to the judge in Division 10, a consequence of the smaller caseload there. In the Western District at Jonesboro civil filings are divided equally among Divisions 1, 2 and 9. Opening the case costs $167.50 by the Circuit Clerk's published list, while the county's own fee page prints $165.00 for the identical line.

What the other side does with the file

Expect a request for a recorded statement early, and a medical authorization written broadly enough to reach back years. Expect fault to be argued hard, because § 16-64-122 compares a claimant's fault with the fault of the parties sued, reduces damages in proportion when the claimant's share is lower, and bars recovery outright when it is equal to or greater. Expect the past medical figure to shrink too. Act 28 of 2025 amended § 16-64-120 so that recovery for past necessary medical care includes only what was actually paid, or what remains unpaid and legally owed.

Nothing in Arkansas law caps what the fall was worth

Article 5, § 32 permits the General Assembly to set compensation amounts for injured workers and then closes the subject: otherwise no law shall be enacted limiting the amount to be recovered for injuries resulting in death or for injuries to persons or property. That clause has teeth. The punitive damages limit written into the 2003 tort act was held unconstitutional in Bayer CropScience LP v. Schafer, and the 2018 ballot measure that would have imposed a $500,000 non-economic ceiling never got counted, because the Supreme Court found it violated the separate-vote rule in article 19, § 22.

The first week, and how a fee gets measured here

Photograph the approach before the defect, so the sight lines are in the frame. Keep the footwear unwashed. Ask for video in writing and name the hours you want held. Then read Rule 1.5 of the Arkansas Rules of Professional Conduct, which prints no percentage anywhere: a fee shall be reasonable, tested against eight factors including the charge customary in this locality. Any engagement likely to run past $1,000.00 must be confirmed in writing, and where payment depends on the outcome the writing states the percentages for settlement, for trial and on appeal, plus which expenses come out of the recovery and when.