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Slip and fall accidents in supermarkets are very common. There are many hazards particular to grocery stores. Slip and falls can occur in the following locations:
Each of these locations provides a different challenge for an Oak Lawn slip and fall lawyer to make a recovery for a slip and fall. What few people realize about a slip and fall in a grocery store or supermarket is that the store is not automatically responsible for your injuries. In order to make a legal recovery, you must prove that the store was negligent, or at fault, for causing your injury.
There are two primary ways to prove a store is negligent for causing a slip and fall. First, you can prove that the store created the condition which caused you to fall. If a store employee causes a condition which causes you to slip and fall and sustain injuries, the store will be legally liable to you. Some examples of cases which McCready Law has handled where employees of the store were responsible for the condition which caused our client to slip are as follows:
The second way to prove a store is negligent is more difficult. You must prove that the store should have known of the dangerous condition and did not fix it. As stated earlier, a store is not automatically responsible if you slip and fall. For example, if a customer is pushing the cart and spills something and you come along ten seconds later and fall, the store is not responsible for that. The store cannot follow every customer and clean up after them.
However, if someone spills something from their cart and the store allows it to remain on the floor for a period of time without discovering it or cleaning it up, the store can be held legally liable. This is called notice. If the slippery substance which caused you to fall was on the floor for a long enough period of time that the grocery store should have discovered it and cleaned it up, they can be held legally responsible.
Here are several ways McCready Law has proven that a supermarket was responsible for our clients’ injuries because they should have known of the slippery condition and failed to clean it up:
As you can see, slip and fall accidents are not easy to prove. For this reason, you should never give a statement to the insurance company when you slip and fall. The insurance adjuster will ask you questions in such a way that it will hurt your chances of making a recovery for your injuries. You may not realize the questions will hurt your case, but the insurance adjuster for the store is only interested in saving money, not paying your claim.