Most people visit a grocery store at least once a week. Even if you shop at a place like Costco to buy in bulk, you probably have to make a weekly stop to your local grocery store for basics like milk, bread, and fresh produce.
Then again, if you’re like a lot of Americans, you hit the grocery store two or three times a week! Those trips not only add up, but they give you a lot more opportunities to get injured if the supermarket is careless and you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Supermarket Injuries Are Too Common
Grocery stores and supermarkets can be busy, chaotic places. Employees are constantly stocking merchandise, collecting carts (which are often in disrepair), making spills, and so on. From sharp carts that can cut people to spilled dish soap to leaky refrigerators to falling merchandise that was stocked improperly, there are so many ways that shoppers can get injured in supermarkets – and these injuries happen way too often.
Some ways shoppers are often injured in supermarkets:
- Shoppers slip on freshly mopped floors
- Shoppers slip on mashed fruit that is in the produce section
- Shoppers slip on wet floors (from rain) at entrances
- Shoppers slip on wet floors (from leaky roofs)
- Shoppers slip on a floor that is wet due to a leaky refrigerator
- Poorly stacked merchandise falls on a shopper
- Shoppers are cut on sharp grocery carts
- Shoppers are victims of store robberies
- Shoppers are crime victims in stores
Is the Store Legally Liable?
In many situations, a grocery store can be legally liable for the injuries sustained by their shoppers, especially when the store was negligent and failed to keep their premises safe. Even if an employee wasn’t responsible for a dangerous condition, the store can still be held liable if it knew about the hazard and failed to take care of it in a reasonable period of time, or if enough time lapsed that the store should have known about it and corrected it, but instead, the store did nothing.
For example, let’s say a customer dropped a bottle of shampoo and she reported it to a store employee immediately but the store employee didn’t care because it was his last day on the job, so he left the shampoo on the floor and another shopper slipped in the shampoo 30 minutes later and broke her hip. In this circumstance, the store could be liable because it knew about the hazard but failed to remedy it right away. This is just one example, but there are many similar scenarios that would give rise to a personal injury claim.
Injured in a grocery store or in a supermarket parking lot? Contact the Law Office of James R. Snell, Jr., LLC to file a claim.