Is Walmart Responsible in a Slip and Fall Lawsuit?

Walmart gets sued a lot. Most of these lawsuits are premises liability claims that allege that a dangerous condition in the store caused an individual to slip and fall. The question then becomes: When is Walmart liable and when are they not?

Must of this question boils down to the circumstances under which the individual fell. In a recent case, a Bolingbrook woman claims that a slip and fall in a Walmart store caused serious permanent injuries. According to the lawsuit, the woman slipped on spray that had fallen into the aisle and spilled.

But does this rise to the standard of negligence?

Walmart’s Duty of Care

Walmart has a duty of care to provide customers with a safe place to shop. But premises liability lawsuits also require that for negligence to have occurred, the dangerous condition must have been foreseeable. This means that either Walmart employees had to know or should have known that the dangerous condition was likely.

From the information we have in the article, we do not know for sure what Walmart knew or should have known, so it is hard to decide with any certainty the merits of her case.

Filing a Claim Against Walmart

If you are injured in a Walmart store, the first thing that they have you do is fill out an incident report. They then submit this incident report to their insurance company, which calls you a day later to explain why the accident was not their fault. They do this in the hopes that you will throw up your hands and give up right there. Many do exactly that.

But when your injuries are extensive, as they appear to be in this case, you can not simply give up on your claim.

In that case, you will need to hire a slip and fall accident attorney to litigate your claim.

Pursuing a Lawsuit

Your attorney will put Walmart on notice that you intend to sue. Walmart has extensive cameras in their stores, so your attorney will request access to the footage of the period of time before the accident and the accident itself.

If this footage shows that employees were around or near the spill and did nothing to remedy the situation, then Walmart will be liable. The only question that remains is: How much money are they required to compensate you for your damages?

Talk to a Rockford, Illinois Slip and Fall Accident Attorney

The attorneys at Brassfield & Krueger have experience litigating claims against retail chains like Walmart. If you been injured due to a dangerous condition, call or contact our attorneys and we can discuss your case for free.