If you needed hip surgery after a fall on someone else’s property, the person who pays is the property owner’s liability insurer, and only if the fall was caused by a condition the owner knew about or should have known about. A hip fracture repaired with screws or a full replacement is a major injury with hospital bills that routinely exceed $100,000, months of rehab, and for older adults a permanent change in mobility. The value of the claim follows the injury. Whether it gets paid follows the evidence about the floor.
What decides hip fracture fall cases is not the surgery. The surgery is documented, expensive and undeniable. What decides them is notice: whether the store, landlord or homeowner had a reasonable chance to find and fix the hazard before you hit it. A 68-year-old who slipped on a leaking refrigerator case at a Ralphs in Northridge, where the puddle had spread four feet and an employee’s own sweep log shows no inspection of that aisle for three hours, has a case the insurer will pay. The same fracture from a grape dropped by another shopper 90 seconds earlier may not be anyone’s fault under California law. The injury is identical. The liability is not, and the liability is what we investigate in the first two weeks, before the video is overwritten.
Who pays for hip surgery after a fall?
The property owner’s liability insurance pays if the fall was caused by a dangerous condition the owner created, knew about, or should have discovered with reasonable inspection. Commercial policies for grocery stores, apartment buildings and shopping centers commonly carry $1 million or more. A homeowner’s policy typically carries $100,000 to $500,000. Your own health insurance or Medicare pays the hospital first and is reimbursed from the settlement.
What the surgery means for the value of the claim
A hip injury from a fall usually takes one of three surgical paths, and each is valued differently. A fracture fixed with pins or a plate, in a younger person who heals fully, is a serious but finite injury. A partial or total hip replacement is a permanent change, with a prosthetic that may need revision in 15 to 20 years. A fracture in someone over 70 is the most serious of the three, because the medical literature on mortality and loss of independence after hip fracture in older adults is well known to every insurer, and the claim includes the home care, the walker, the move out of the second-floor apartment in Van Nuys.
The economic damages are the medical bills at the amounts actually paid under California’s Howell rule, future care, and lost income if you were working. A hospital bill of $140,000 that Medicare paid at $38,000 is a $38,000 medical damage, and Medicare has a lien for that amount that must be resolved before you receive your share. Non-economic damages, meaning the pain, the lost mobility and the loss of the life you had, are usually the larger number in a hip case, especially where the person cannot return to walking the Northridge Mall or caring for grandchildren.
To give a labeled example and not a prediction: a 71-year-old retiree with a total hip replacement after a fall at a Burbank shopping center, with clear video of a hazard the staff walked past twice, and a full recovery to a cane, presents a claim well into six figures against a commercial policy. The same injury on the same floor where the hazard appeared seconds before the fall may present no recoverable claim at all. That is why the value question cannot be answered until the notice question is.
How premises liability works in California
Property owners owe a duty of reasonable care to keep their premises safe under Civil Code 1714. For a store, that means a reasonable inspection system and prompt cleanup of what the inspection finds. The owner is not an insurer of your safety. A hazard has to have existed long enough that a reasonable inspection would have found it, or the owner has to have created it.
Evidence of how long the hazard was there is the whole case. Dried edges on a spill, tracks through it, a leaking cooler that staff had reported, a cracked walkway in an apartment complex that tenants complained about for a year. Surveillance video is the single most valuable item, and most stores keep it for 30 days or less unless someone demands preservation in writing. Sweep logs, incident reports, and the identity of the employee who filled out the report come next.
California’s pure comparative negligence rule means the insurer will try to assign you a share. If you were looking at your phone, wearing flip-flops in the rain, or walked past a visible cone, your recovery is reduced by your percentage. A 30 percent share of a $400,000 claim is $120,000 less. It does not end the claim.
What the insurance company will do
Expect a prompt, friendly call and a request for a recorded statement about what you were looking at and what you were wearing. Expect a claim that the hazard was open and obvious. Expect, in a case with an older plaintiff, a records request going back ten years looking for osteoporosis, prior falls, balance problems and any medication that causes dizziness. The point is to argue the hip would have broken anyway, or that you fell for a medical reason.
Prior osteoporosis does not defeat the claim. California law takes the injured person as it finds them. A thinner bone that broke in a fall that should not have happened is still a broken bone caused by the fall. But the medical history has to be handled, not hidden.
What to do now
If you have not already, have someone photograph the exact spot, the lighting and any signs or cones, today. Get the names of anyone who helped you up. Send a written preservation demand for video to the property owner immediately; we send ours the day we are retained. Report the fall to the store or landlord if you have not, and get a copy of the incident report. Keep every discharge instruction and therapy note.
Do not give a recorded statement before speaking with an attorney. Do not sign a medical authorization from the owner’s insurer that reaches back ten years and covers every provider. Do not post about the fall. Watch the two-year deadline under Code of Civil Procedure 335.1, and the six-month government claim deadline if the fall was on a sidewalk, at a public park, at Metro or at a county facility.
Common mistakes
Waiting until after rehab to call a lawyer is the one that costs the most. Hip surgery and six weeks of inpatient rehab consume a family’s attention, and by the time anyone thinks about a claim the video is gone and the spill has been mopped up for two months. The second is telling the emergency room “I just fell” without saying what caused it; the chart becomes the insurer’s first exhibit. The third is accepting an early offer that covers the hospital bill and nothing else, before anyone knows whether the replacement will need revision or whether walking will come back.
Questions people ask next
Does it matter that I am on Medicare? Medicare pays the bills first and must be reimbursed from the settlement. The lien is resolved by the attorney before funds are distributed, and the case value accounts for it.
What if I fell at my own apartment building? Landlords owe the same duty to tenants and guests in common areas. Prior complaints to management about the condition are the strongest evidence of notice.
What if the fall was on a city sidewalk? A claim against the City of Los Angeles or any public entity must be filed in writing within six months under Government Code 911.2, long before the two-year lawsuit deadline.
Manoukian Law Firm handles fall cases involving hip fractures and replacements across the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles County, and Vaheh Manoukian personally handles the investigation, the lien negotiation and the claim. If you or a family member needed hip surgery after a fall, call (818) 818-5031 for a free consultation.
