What is actual vs constructive notice of a hazard?

Actual notice — someone at the business had direct knowledge. An employee saw the spill, a customer reported it, a manager was told. Rare to prove directly, but powerful when it exists. It surfaces in employee depositions and in incident reports.

Constructive notice — the law attributes knowledge because a reasonably careful business would have discovered the hazard. The statute provides two routes.

Route one: duration. The condition existed long enough that they should have found it. Proven with video, with the condition of the substance — tracked through, dirty, dried at the edges — and with inspection logs showing when the area was last checked.

Route two: regularity. The condition occurred with regularity and was therefore foreseeable. No timeline required.

Why route two is undervalued. Duration evidence depends on video that gets overwritten. Regularity evidence lives in records that persist — prior incident reports, maintenance tickets for the same equipment, and testimony about how often that area needs attention.