Do Banana Peel Slip & Fall Accidents Actually Happen?

When you were a kid, do you remember ever watching a cartoon where one of the cartoon characters slipped and fell on a banana peel? Well, you probably didn’t know this, but there is an entire line of case law that is taught to law students when they’re in law school that deal with people who have slipped and fell on banana peels. Those cases are important in understanding the responsibilities and duties of a store, a property owner, in maintaining that property in a reasonably safe condition for their customers that they invite onto their property.

In a lot of cases to hold the store responsible for the person’s injuries, the injured person would have to prove that the store knew or should have known of the dangerous condition and cleaned it up, warn them about it. The banana peel cases essentially say that if the banana peel is fresh, then it probably wasn’t there enough time for the store to know about it and clean it up. On the other hand, if that banana peel is old and dirty, then it was likely there for a long time, the store owner should have known about it, cleaned it up and prevented the accident. In any event, be careful where you throw your banana peel.