Latest / BSPE Legal Marketing Podcast / How Can You Preserve Surveillance Video After a Slip and Fall? - Samantha Kucher

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How Can You Preserve Surveillance Video After a Slip and Fall? - Samantha Kucher · BSPE Legal Marketing Podcast

• 0:00
  How Can You Preserve Surveillance Video After a Slip and Fall?
• 0:03
  Every hour that passes after a slip and fall in Brooklyn could mean the difference between securing critical video evidence and losing it forever to an automatic recording loop.
• 0:13
  Most Brooklyn businesses run surveillance systems on a continuous loop, recording over the oldest footage once the storage drive fills up, typically within 7 to 30 days depending on the size and type of the business.
• 0:25
  A small bodega with four cameras and a compact DVR may only retain about a week of footage, while a large national chain with corporate cloud storage could hold video for 30 to 90 days before purging it on a set schedule.
• 0:39
  The critical point is that footage is almost never deleted on purpose — it simply disappears as the system overwrites itself, which means acting in the first few days after your injury is absolutely essential.
• 0:50
  The most powerful tool available to an injured person is a preservation letter, a written notice formally telling the business to save specific surveillance footage because it is relevant to a potential legal claim.
• 1:02
  A preservation letter is not a lawsuit or a court order, but once delivered, it creates a clear legal record showing the property owner was put on notice, which means any subsequent loss of footage cannot be dismissed as routine housekeeping.
• 1:15
  An effective preservation letter must include the exact date and time window of the fall, the precise location such as an aisle number or stairwell, the specific cameras involved, and a demand to preserve the original footage along with cleaning logs and incident reports.
• 1:30
  Surveillance footage can reveal how long a wet floor had been left unaddressed, whether employees walked past the hazard without acting, and whether anyone placed a warning cone before your fall — details that can be decisive in proving a property owner's negligence.
• 1:45
  Knowing who should receive the preservation letter is just as important as what it says, since at a chain supermarket the on-site manager often has no control over surveillance systems, with that authority belonging instead to a corporate risk or loss-prevention department.
• 2:00
  For independent Brooklyn shops and restaurants, the owner may be the only person with access to the system, so sending the letter by certified mail with a return receipt — and by email when available — ensures you have proof of delivery.
• 2:12
  If a manager prepares an incident report while you are still at the scene, ask that it specifically identify which cameras cover the area where you fell, creating a written record that makes it far harder for the business to later claim it did not know which footage to preserve.
• 2:28
  Brooklyn slip and fall attorney Samantha Kucher has spent her entire legal career practicing personal injury law in New York, and the law firm she leads focuses on securing exactly this kind of critical early evidence before it disappears.
• 2:41
  When you need an attorney who understands how to protect your rights from the very first hours after an injury, contact Kucher Law Group for a free consultation at 929, 563, 6780, located at 463 Pulaski St #1c, Brooklyn, NY 11221, United States.