Andrew Pickett Law is a top Melbourne slip and fall law firm that handles injury cases throughout Melbourne and Brevard County for victims who need help getting medical treatment and financial recovery. Andrew Pickett has tried injury cases to verdict, which is what changes a store insurer’s view of a fall claim.
What You Need To Know
- Fall claims are harder in Florida than the internet suggests, and people lose them early rather than late. A lawyer’s first job here is to reach the evidence before the shop’s own schedule erases it.
- You can handle a fall claim on your own when the hazard is clear and the store is helpful. You can’t do much alone once the store’s video disappears in three weeks. We’d rather you finish here knowing which situation you’re in, whether or not you hire anyone.
- A shop isn’t liable just because you fell in it. A shop is liable if it knew about the hazard, or if the hazard sat there long enough that it should’ve known.
- The proof that decides a fall claim usually isn’t around for more than a few days. Store video, the inspection log for the aisle, and the name of the employee who walked past the spill all disappear on a schedule.
- Ask the store in writing to preserve its video today, and name the date, the time and the aisle. Your letter costs nothing, and it changes what’s still around in three weeks.
- Falls caused by something on the floor and falls caused by the building itself run under different rules. Which kind you had changes what you’ll have to prove.
- A fall on city or county property runs on a shorter clock and needs written notice first. Neither the City of Melbourne nor Brevard County publishes a form for the notice.
Start with the letter you can send today, because the store’s video disappears in about three weeks and nothing else on the page matters once it’s gone. What a shop has to have known, whether you need a lawyer, and the fee come next. The deadline, the public-property rules and the statute citations sit further down.
Send the Store One Letter Today
The proof that decides a fall claim usually isn’t around for more than a few days. Store video, the inspection log for the aisle, and the name of the employee who walked past the spill all disappear on a schedule the store sets.
Ask the store in writing to preserve its video today, and name the date, the time and the aisle. Your letter costs nothing, and it changes what’s still around in three weeks.
Send the letter by email and by post, keep a copy of each, and write down who you handed it to if you deliver it in person. A store that receives a written request and records over the video anyway has a problem of its own making.
Photograph your bruising as it develops and see a doctor now. No automatic insurance pays your first medical bills after a fall the way it does after a car crash, so your health insurance carries the hospital while the claim gets built.
A Shop Isn’t Liable Just Because You Fell in It
Fall claims are harder in Florida than the internet suggests, and people lose them early rather than late. Florida asks a narrower question than whether you fell: did the shop know about the hazard, or did the hazard sit there long enough that the shop should’ve known?
Falls caused by something on the floor and falls caused by the building itself run under different rules, and which kind you had changes what you’ll have to prove. With a spilled drink you prove what the store knew, and with a broken step you prove what the store failed to fix.
A fall on city or county property runs on a shorter clock and needs written notice first. Neither the City of Melbourne nor Brevard County publishes a form for the notice, so a letter that names the date, the place and the injury is what the law wants.
You don’t lose the claim by failing to see the spill yourself. Your share of the blame reduces what you collect, and only a share above half ends the claim.
No Fee for a Melbourne Fall Case Unless We Recover for You
Andrew Pickett Law works on a contingency fee only. We take a minority percentage of whatever we recover for you, and we charge no fee at all if we recover nothing. You’ll never write us a check to get started, and you’ll never see an hourly bill.
Florida law caps the percentage a law firm can charge, so no firm sets its own ceiling. We back the Bar’s cap with a commitment of our own. We work your case to its maximum value, and we pay the filing fees, order the medical records and hire the experts while you’re still healing.
Ask any firm you talk to, including us, who pays the advanced costs if you lose. Firms answer the question differently, so get the answer in writing before you sign anything.
When You Can Handle a Fall Claim Without Us
You can handle a fall claim on your own when the hazard is clear and the store is helpful. A manager who apologized, wrote up the spill, and passed your bill to an insurer that paid it has given you a claim that needs nobody.
You can’t do much alone once the store’s video disappears in three weeks. An adjuster can accept your medical bills and still argue you caused the fall, and the argument arrives after the proof is gone.
We’d rather you finish here knowing which situation you’re in, whether or not you hire anyone. Call before the three weeks run out, describe the fall, and we’ll tell you what proof still exists.
The call and the review cost nothing, and nobody signs anything to have the conversation.
We Start by Believing You
Before he represented injured people, Andrew Pickett prosecuted cases in the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit, and Brevard judges try Melbourne fall cases in the same circuit. He grew up in Brevard County, he trained at the Trial Lawyers College, and he has taken injury cases through jury verdict. An insurance carrier prices a file differently when the lawyer on the other side has taken cases to a jury.
You’ll deal with the lawyer on your case rather than a call center. Someone who fell in a store usually arrives half-convinced that nobody believes them, so we’ll tell you what just happened in your case, what the next step is, and roughly when it comes.
Describe the Fall and We’ll Tell You What Proof Probably Survived
A first call is a conversation, not a commitment. You describe the fall and where it happened, and we’ll tell you what proof is probably still there and how long it lasts.
Bring the date, the store and the name of anyone you reported the fall to. You can call with no paperwork at all.
If Andrew Pickett Law takes your case, our fee comes out of a recovery and nothing comes out of your pocket while the case runs. If the claim doesn’t need a lawyer, we’ll tell you and you can take the offer.
Slip and Fall Lawyers Serving Melbourne
Slip and fall accidents can occur in a wide variety of locations throughout Melbourne and Brevard County, including grocery stores, retail businesses, restaurants, office buildings, hotels, and apartment complexes. Falls frequently occur due to hazardous conditions such as wet floors, uneven walkways, broken handrails, poor lighting, or unsafe stairways.
At Andrew Pickett Law, our legal team represents individuals injured in premises liability accidents when property owners fail to correct dangerous conditions. Our firm investigates the circumstances of each fall, gathers evidence regarding unsafe conditions, and works to hold negligent property owners accountable.
Compensation Available After a Fall on Unsafe Property
Slip and fall accidents can lead to serious injuries including fractures, head injuries, spinal damage, and other long-term medical complications. Our Melbourne injury attorneys help clients pursue compensation for:
- Emergency medical treatment and hospitalization
- Ongoing medical care and rehabilitation
- Lost wages and reduced earning capacity
- Pain and suffering
- Permanent disability or long-term injuries
- Wrongful death damages for families who have lost loved ones
Because property owners and insurance companies often dispute liability after a fall, having an experienced attorney can help ensure that evidence is preserved and your rights are protected throughout the legal process.
The Store’s Video Is Recorded Over Within Months
If you were injured in a fall on someone else’s property, you must act decisively. Under Florida law (House Bill 837), the statute of limitations for personal injury claims based on negligence is two years from the exact date of the incident.
Waiting to secure legal representation can cripple your claim. Within months, surveillance video is recorded over, inspection and spill logs are overwritten, and the hazard that caused your fall is cleaned up or repaired. Even when a fall seems minor at the scene, internal or cognitive injuries can take weeks to surface. To protect your financial security, call a lawyer as soon as you are medically stable.
Frequently Asked Questions About Slip and Fall Claims
What should I do after a slip and fall accident in Melbourne?
After a slip and fall accident in Melbourne, you should seek medical attention immediately and report the incident to the property owner or manager. If possible, document the scene and the hazardous condition that caused the fall. It may also be helpful to speak with an attorney before discussing the accident with insurance representatives.
Who is responsible for a slip and fall injury?
Property owners and businesses have a legal duty to maintain reasonably safe premises. When they fail to repair hazards, clean dangerous conditions, or provide proper warnings, they may be held responsible for injuries that occur as a result.
What compensation can slip and fall victims recover?
Victims injured in slip and fall accidents may recover compensation for medical expenses, lost income, rehabilitation costs, pain and suffering, and other damages depending on the severity of the injuries and the circumstances of the accident.
Falls in shops and on public property: what decides these cases
Does it matter whether I slipped or tripped?
This is the most useful distinction in a Florida fall case and it is almost never explained. Falls caused by something on the floor — water, oil, spilled produce — are governed by a special statute that makes them hard to win. It requires you to prove the business knew about the substance, or that it had been there long enough that they should have.1
Falls caused by the building are not governed by that statute at all. A broken step, a missing handrail, risers of uneven height, a threshold with no marking, a walkway with no light. Those are ordinary negligence claims about a permanent condition, and there is no “how long was it there” question to answer, because it was always there.
So be precise about what your foot actually did. People say “I slipped” as a figure of speech, it goes into the incident report that way, and the harder statute gets applied to a claim that never needed it.
Why do so many fall claims fail?
Fall cases are harder in Florida than the internet suggests, and the reason is the notice requirement above. A shop is not liable because you fell in it. They are liable if they knew, or if the spill sat there long enough that a reasonable business would have found it — and proving how long a puddle had been on a floor, after the fact, is difficult.
What decides it is usually evidence that exists for a matter of days. Surveillance footage that shows the spill happening, and the twenty minutes before you walked into it. The inspection log with a gap in it. The name of the employee who walked past it twice. Many retail systems overwrite footage on a cycle measured in weeks, and some in days. A written request that the footage be preserved — sent immediately, to the store and to its head office — may do more for your case than anything else available to you in the first week, and you do not need a lawyer to send one.
Better said now than after the footage is gone. If it was never preserved and never logged, sometimes there is no case, and a firm that tells you otherwise for a year is spending your time.
What might the store argue I did wrong?
Fall cases turn on blame-sharing more than any other kind, because there is usually an argument that you should have seen it. Florida’s rule is unforgiving once your share passes half, so think about these before you give a statement, not after.
- “You were looking at your phone.” The question that answers it is whether the hazard was visible from your approach at all — clear liquid on a polished floor frequently is not, from any angle, to anyone.
- “You were wearing flip-flops.” Footwear matters far less than the surface. The real question is whether the floor still met its own slip-resistance rating once wet, which is a measurable thing.
- “There was a cone.” Where exactly, and did it cover the area you actually walked through? A cone at one end of an aisle may be no warning at all at the other.
- “You had already walked past that spot.” Only useful to them if the floor was in the same state both times, which in a spill case it usually was not.
What if I fell on city or county property?
A fall in a park, on a city sidewalk, in a county building or at a government office is a different procedure with a shorter fuse. The main Melbourne page covers the written notice requirement; what follows is where it actually has to go.
Neither the City of Melbourne nor Brevard County publishes a claim form. There is nothing to find, which is why people go looking and then give up. The notice is a letter you write.
- City of Melbourne — Human Resources and Risk Management, City Hall, 900 East Strawbridge Avenue, Melbourne FL 32901.2 No form, no claims email, no published instructions.
- Brevard County — Risk Management, 2725 Judge Fran Jamieson Way, Viera FL 32940.3
- Brevard County Sheriff’s Office is a separate body — 700 South Park Avenue, Titusville FL 32780.4
- Brevard Public Schools is separate again — Office of Risk Management, 2700 Judge Fran Jamieson Way, Viera FL 32940.5 Note the number: 2700, not 2725.
Read this part twice. Brevard County’s own claims page tells members of the public to telephone Risk Management, and its online claims system is restricted to county employees.3 But the statute requires the claim to be presented in writing.6 A person who follows the county’s published instruction exactly, and only telephones, may have failed a condition the law treats as mandatory. Call if you want to. Then write, and send it by certified mail so you can prove the date it arrived.
References
- Fla. Stat. § 768.0755 — premises liability for injury from a transitory foreign substance in a business establishment; actual or constructive knowledge required. By its terms it governs transitory substances, not permanent conditions of the premises
- City of Melbourne, Human Resources and Risk Management, 900 East Strawbridge Avenue, Melbourne FL 32901; 321-608-7800. The city publishes no claim form or claims-intake instructions
- Brevard County Human Resources Office, Risk Management, 2725 Judge Fran Jamieson Way, Viera FL 32940; public claims line 321-633-2037. The county’s online claims application is restricted to county and constitutional-office employees
- Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, 700 South Park Avenue, Titusville FL 32780; non-emergency 321-264-5100
- School Board of Brevard County, Office of Risk Management, 2700 Judge Fran Jamieson Way, Viera FL 32940
- Fla. Stat. § 768.28(6)(a)–(b) — the claim must be presented in writing to the appropriate agency; written notice and denial are conditions precedent to suit
Other Premises and Injury Cases We Handle
In addition to representing victims of slip and fall accidents, Andrew Pickett Law handles many other types of accident and injury cases throughout Melbourne and Brevard County, including:
- Car Accident
- Truck Accident
- Motorcycle Accident
- Uber & Lyft Accident
- Pedestrian Accident
- Bicycle Accident
- Dog Bite Injury
- Boating Accident
- Wrongful Death
Areas and Zip Codes Served From Our Melbourne Office
- 32901 – Downtown Melbourne / Crane Creek
- 32904 – West Melbourne
- 32934 – Wickham Park / North Melbourne
- 32935 – Eau Gallie / Croton Road Corridor
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"I am so very grateful to have had this firm represent me. I was in a car accident a few years ago, but the car insurance company of the person who totaled my car would not replace my car, nor pay for my medical bills. We ended up going to court and because of Mr. Pickett, we won the case. Thank you so much for all you did for us!!!!"
Meet Andrew Pickett
Dealing with the murky policies of insurance companies designed to confuse and prevent you from receiving compensation is our expertise.
15+ years experience as a personal injury attorney.
Specialized in battling insurance companies.
95% settlement rate for clients.
Handled 450+ personal injury cases.
Collected more than $50 million for clients.
450+ people have chosen Andrew as their attorney.
520+ Satisfied Clients
Our latest reviews on Google
Jennifer Cleveland
2 months ago
Lauren and her team are the best! Thank you for all the help, I 10/10 recommended them!
Ivanova Rodriguez
2 months ago
Great experience, kindness people
andrew rafidi
2 months ago
Project Backpack was a major success! Wonderful community outreach event! Emma Vinson is incredibly kind and helpful!
michele stanevich
2 months ago
What a wonderful event. Very well organized. He introduced himself to everyone. I will keep him in mind if and when I need a lawyer.
Lisa & Andrew Arnabat
2 months ago
Our team (attorney Tiffany Whitehouse, paralegals Vonda and Lindsey, our legal assistant Lauren, and Caroline) at Andrew Pickett Law has been absolutely amazing. They have been communicative from start to finish and have gone above and beyond in all aspects. They treated us like people, not like another number. Thank you for all of your help & guidance throughout what would have been an otherwise overwhelming and confusing process.
Thomas Preston
2 months ago
Andrew Pickett law for is a real good law and I will recommend him to need a real good lawyer.Thank you very much from my case.My name is Thomas Preston.Thank you
Close Family
3 months ago
Andrew Pickett and his team were very professional and supportave throughout my whole case. They took care of all the bills and successfully negotiated with the insurance companies. They were able to get 850,000 towards all the medical bills. I would definitelly recommend them.
Orestes Olmo
3 months ago
(Translated by Google) Excellent service. I was recommended by my daughter-in-law, and the beginning has been wonderful. They asked all the necessary questions and were incredibly quick at the start of the process. I am very grateful for their attention. (Original) Excelente trato ,fui recomendado por mi nuera y la verdad el inicio a sido maravilloso, hicieron las preguntas necesarias y una rapidez increíble en el comienzo del proceso , les agradezco mucho esta atención
Caitlin Cheatham
3 months ago
Amazing experience, they got me the best settlement I could’ve asked for. Always responded quickly and kept me in the loop! Highly recommend
Heidi Bushing
3 months ago
The team at Andrew Pickett is amazing. They helped me with two accidents and have been very attentive and communicative.
pebbs jai
3 months ago
I highly recommend this law office. Special thank you to Allison W. for answering all my questions and concerns. All staff were very helpful, professional and pleasant. They also give back to the community so if you are looking for a well knowledgeable law firm this is it!! Mr Andrew Pickett I appreciate you.
Krissy Green
3 months ago
Thank you all for your support I appreciate so much you guys are awesome
Stephanie Mortier
4 months ago
I absolutely love this law firm , down to the absolute best communication, and the follow up calls with details . Thank you guys !
Kimmy Ware-Simmons
4 months ago
A special thanks to this wonderful team! I’ve been truly blessed to be represented by Andrew Pickett Law. All my questions have been attentively addressed and explained perfectly in a way I am fully able to understand. This Lawfirm treats everyone with respect and like family. 10/10 review and definitely recommend!
Stephanie Mortier
4 months ago
Thank you , she was very helpful and friendly .
Steve Ryland
4 months ago
Andrew and his team provided outstanding legal representation with a high level of professionalism, responsiveness, and attention to detail. He communicated clearly throughout the process and delivered a result we were very satisfied with. I truly appreciate his expertise and would highly recommend him to anyone in need of strong, reliable legal counsel.
christian leon
4 months ago
Working with Tiffany Whitehouse, Vonda, and Lauren at Andrew Pickett Law Firm was an amazing experience for me. They were really professional, attentive, and committed to my case from beginning to end. Their diligence and genuine concern for achieving the greatest result for me were what truly stood out. I genuinely felt like I was in good hands the entire time because of their dedication and teamwork, which made a difficult situation much easier to face. I got the best outcomes I could have imagined because of their hard work and knowledge. I am incredibly appreciative and would heartily suggest their team to anyone in need of legal assistance.
Erin Mclachlan
5 months ago
My experience is based on 2 settlements so far, still pending another case and 1 of the already settled cases M&M took but didn't want to keep after stringing me along for 4 months. So just choose Andrew Pickett Law, don't waste time with another injury attorney. Tiffany Whitehouse is great, she was confident in my cases, kept me informed and very accommodating. We didn't even have to go to court for those 2 cases. And because I had already trusted them with 2 cases, I also gave them a third case which settled quickly. My only regret, I just wish I had known about them sooner. Thanks for everything! I have already recommended my friends and clients and will continue.
Carlos Mangual
5 months ago
Tiffany Whitehouse has been a tremendous help to me through out my whole process majorly because of her communication she’s always one phone call or text away and really gives me comfort to have any of my questions or worries answered so quickly
Hannah Dorris
5 months ago
If I could give more than 5 stars I would. I cannot say enough amazing things about Tiffany Whitehouse and her entire team. From the very beginning, I felt genuinely cared for, supported, and prioritized throughout my entire experience. Tiffany is an absolute powerhouse her knowledge, confidence, and attention to detail truly set her apart from any attorney I’ve ever worked with. She knows her craft inside and out, and you can feel that level of expertise in every interaction. What really stood out to me was how responsive and efficient everyone was. Communication was always clear and timely, and I was never left wondering about the status of my case. Tiffany and her paralegal, Vonda, worked seamlessly together and made everything feel organized and stress-free. Vonda was incredibly kind, attentive, and always made sure I had what I needed. They both went above and beyond in ways that made a stressful situation feel manageable. I also want to recognize the admin team, especially Lauren and Hailey. They were so welcoming, helpful, and professional every time I interacted with them. It’s clear that this entire office operates with a high level of care, compassion, and dedication to their clients. Another thing that truly stood out to me was how thorough and patient everyone was when answering my questions. No matter how many I had, they took the time to explain everything in detail and made sure I fully understood even if it took 20 minutes. That level of patience and dedication meant so much and made me feel confident every step of the way. What meant the most to me is that they didn’t treat me like just another case they truly cared about me as a person. They checked in regularly, made sure I felt supported, and consistently went the extra mile. That kind of genuine compassion is rare to find. If you’re looking for a legal team that is not only highly skilled but also truly invested in you, I wholeheartedly recommend Andrew Pickett Law. They exceeded all of my expectations and I am beyond grateful for everything they’ve done for me. Thank you all SO incredibly much!