It can determine who pays medical bills, lost wages, and other damages after a fall, assault, or other injury on someone else's property. A strong premises liability claim can open insurance coverage and increase settlement value; a weak one can fail if the injured person cannot prove the owner or occupier had a legal duty and breached it.

Premises liability is the body of law that holds a property owner, landlord, business operator, tenant, or other party in control of land or a building responsible for injuries caused by unsafe conditions on the premises. The core issue is negligence: whether the defendant maintained the property in a reasonably safe condition, warned of dangers, and corrected hazards they knew or should have known about. Common examples include wet floors, broken stairs, poor lighting, inadequate security, snow and ice, and unsafe sidewalks.

In New York, the general duty standard comes from Basso v. Miller, 40 N.Y.2d 233 (1976), which requires reasonable care under the circumstances rather than rigid visitor categories. Fault can also be divided under New York's comparative negligence rule, CPLR 1411, so compensation may be reduced if the injured person was partly at fault, but not eliminated for that reason alone.

For injury claims, timing and notice matter. New York's general statute of limitations for negligence, including most premises cases, is three years under CPLR 214(5). If a city agency or other public entity is involved, a Notice of Claim may be required within 90 days under General Municipal Law § 50-e.