How Presence of Warning Sign Could Affect Liability of Property Owner

If a property owner knew of a danger on his or her piece of property, then that same owner would have a duty to post a warning sign. How could such a sign’s presence affect an injury claim?

Had the owner taken a reasonable action?

What had the owner known about the danger? Did that same danger seem hidden to the typical visitor? Was it something that a visitor would have had trouble discovering?

Personal injury lawyer in Barrie would ask if the owner’s level of care equal to the level of care that one would expect from a reasonable person?

Other factors that could affect the owner’s liability

• How effective was the posted warning?
• Was it so small that a visitor might fail to see it?
• Had it been placed in a prominent location? Did its location correspond with the sort of danger alert on the sign? For instance, if bees had a hive high in a tree, had the warning been placed in a spot where men working on the telephone or electrical lines could see it.
• Was the sign’s print easy to read? Had the print faded? Perhaps a newer warning would have avoided the injury reported by the visitor.
• Would a reasonable person have used more than a sign? For example, the owner of a pool usually puts fence around that inviting body of water, so that the likelihood for the drowning of a child has decreased.
• Had someone scribbled over the sign’s words? If that had happened before, then maybe the owner should have used some type of protective cover on that warning.
• Had the number of signs been sufficient?

That question could get raised if the owner of a large parcel of land placed only a single warning on that same parcel. Obviously, there should be a number of signs on such an area.

Maybe the dangerous spot was located in a region where many residents had a native tongue other than English. If that were the case, then smart owners might elect to post signs in different languages.

Had the owner ruled-out usage of signs in multiple languages? Was that due to the cost, or reluctance to warn non-native residents? If the latter were the case, then that might qualify as something resembling deadly force. Hence, that could make the owner liable for a reported injury.

Suppose there were lots of signs, but they did not all say the same thing, could that be a problem? Is it possible that a visitor might overlook an important message, while trying to read the words on as many signs as possible? Imagine trying to decode the message being spelled out by a series of flashing lights on different corners of a billboard.