Property owners in Tempe must keep their premises reasonably safe, and when they fail, the injuries are rarely minor. A Tempe premises liability lawyer at Hartley Law Car Accident & Injury Lawyers can identify who controlled the dangerous condition, what they knew about it, and when they knew. Our team handles injuries that happen inside commercial buildings, across apartment complexes, at bars and restaurants, and on government-owned land throughout the city.
Carriers for national retailers and property management companies start building these files toward denial from the first phone call. We build them toward proof. Call Hartley Law at (602) 529-2222 for a free case evaluation with an attorney who will tell you honestly what your claim involves.
Most injury lawyers have spent their whole careers on the plaintiff side. Our founding attorney did not. He was a partner at one of the world's largest law firms, where he represented Fortune 500 corporations and teams in the NFL, MLB, and NHL in matters involving more than $1 billion.
That background matters in premises cases because the opposing party is usually a corporation rather than an individual. We already know how those legal departments assign risk, document incidents, and decide what to concede.
In practice, that means moving on the record before it degrades. Our team sends preservation demands for surveillance video, requests inspection and cleaning logs, pulls prior incident reports for the same location, and identifies the vendors who serviced the area.
Our Tempe office is at 1438 W Broadway Rd, Suite 101A, which means we can quickly reach an incident site, a property manager, or a records custodian. Every premises matter is handled on a contingency fee basis under a signed agreement. If you are still deciding what kind of claim you have, our Tempe personal injury lawyer page covers the broader picture.
Falls are the best-known property injury, but they are only one category. Premises liability reaches any injury traceable to a condition the property owner or operator should have corrected or warned about.
Our attorneys handle claims involving:
If your injury resulted from a wet floor, a torn carpet, or an uneven walkway, our Tempe slip-and-fall lawyer page addresses those claims directly.
The party that owns the land is not always the party that controlled the hazard. Identifying every responsible entity early is often what separates a claim that resolves fairly from one that stalls against a single underinsured defendant.
Depending on the facts, responsibility can rest with the property owner, the business leasing and operating the space, a property management company, a maintenance or janitorial contractor, or a security vendor. Each may carry separate insurance, and each may point at the others.
Shopping centers, apartment portfolios, and franchise locations are frequently held through layered entities, so the name on the lease is rarely the whole answer. We trace ownership records, lease terms, and service agreements to establish who was actually responsible for the area where you were injured.
Landlords carry defined obligations. Under A.R.S. § 33-1324, an Arizona residential landlord must comply with building codes materially affecting health and safety and make the repairs necessary to keep the premises fit and habitable.
The same statute requires the landlord to keep all common areas clean and safe.
It also requires that electrical, plumbing, heating, ventilating, air-conditioning, and other supplied facilities, including elevators, be maintained in good and safe working order.
Those requirements matter when someone is injured in a stairwell, laundry room, parking area, or another shared space. Our team requests work orders, tenant complaint histories, and vendor contracts to establish what the landlord was told and what was left undone.
Injuries connected to a licensed establishment follow a separate statutory path. Arizona sets specific conditions before a liquor licensee can be held liable for harm caused by an intoxicated patron.
Under A.R.S. § 4-311, a licensee is liable for personal injuries, property damage, or a wrongful death action only if a court or jury finds all of the following:
The statute also provides that a licensee is not chargeable with knowledge of earlier drinking at other locations unknown to it, unless the person was obviously intoxicated. Proving these elements usually turns on service records, point-of-sale data, staff scheduling, and video, all of which can disappear within weeks.
Claims against a public entity run on a much shorter clock than claims against a private business, and the difference has ended otherwise strong cases. A public park, a municipal building, a transit facility, or a state university campus falls into this category.
A.R.S. § 12-821.01 requires a claim against a public entity, public school, or public employee to be filed within 180 days after the cause of action accrues. That filing must contain facts sufficient to let the entity understand the basis on which liability is claimed, plus a specific amount for which the claim can be settled and the facts supporting that amount.
A claim not filed within 180 days is barred, and no action may be maintained on it. The claim is deemed denied 60 days after filing unless a written denial arrives sooner.
The same statute defines when that clock starts. Accrual happens when the damaged party realizes he or she has been damaged and knows, or reasonably should know, what caused it. The statute frames that as the cause, source, act, event, instrumentality, or condition that caused or contributed to the damage.
A separate deadline governs the lawsuit itself. Under A.R.S. § 12-821, all actions against a public entity or public employee must be brought within one year after the cause of action accrues.
Expect the property owner to argue you caused your own injury. In Arizona, that argument reduces a recovery rather than defeating it.
A.R.S. § 12-2505 makes contributory negligence and assumption of risk questions of fact for the jury in all cases.
If the jury applies either defense, the action is not barred. Full damages are instead reduced in proportion to the relative degree of the injured person's fault that is a proximate cause of the injury or death.
The statute withholds that protection from anyone who intentionally, wilfully, or wantonly caused or contributed to the harm.
For claims against private parties, A.R.S. § 12-542 requires an action for injuries done to the person of another to be commenced within two years after the cause of action accrues.
Slip and fall is one type of premises liability claim. The broader category covers any injury caused by an unsafe property condition, including assaults tied to poor security, pool incidents, falling objects, and structural failures.
Often, yes. Arizona landlords must keep common areas clean and safe and maintain supplied systems in safe working order, so stairwells, walkways, laundry rooms, and pool areas are frequently at issue.
The attacker is responsible for the assault. Separately, the property owner or operator may face liability if inadequate lighting, broken locks, a lack of security, or prior incidents ignored made the attack foreseeable.
Public property claims carry a 180-day filing requirement and a one-year deadline for the lawsuit. Call us immediately, because those windows close long before the standard two-year deadline for private claims.
We name every entity the evidence supports, including an owner, a lessee, a management firm, and outside contractors. Multiple defendants often mean multiple insurance policies rather than one limited policy.
We handle premises matters on a contingency fee basis, with the fee terms set out in a written agreement before any work begins. The case evaluation itself is free.
Evidence in property cases is perishable. Video is overwritten, hazards are repaired, incident reports are filed away, and staff moves on, all within the first few weeks after an injury.
Our Tempe premises liability lawyer team can begin preserving that record now and explain which deadlines apply to your situation. Attorney Matt Hartley and our staff will review what happened, identify who controlled the property, and tell you candidly whether the claim should move forward.
Call Hartley Law at (602) 529-2222 or reach us through our contact page to schedule a free case evaluation.
Serious injury cases deserve careful evaluation and experienced judgment. Hartley Law PLLC represents clients across Arizona with a focus on strategy, preparation, and personal attention. We review each matter carefully and help you understand whether your case should move forward.
Get Free Ebook
