Falling Merchandise at Big Box Stores
A "big box" store like a Walmart, Target or Meijer is a prime spot for slip and falls, trip and falls or falling merchandise injuries in Indianapolis or the rest of the State of Indiana.
At Shaw Law, we handled these types of claims and cases in Indianapolis and throughout the State of Indiana for over 30+ years now with amazing success.
Big box stores in Indiana -- like all stores that invite customers -- owe the highest duty of care to all persons invited on the property to shop. A formal invitation is not necessary. In fact, it isn't required that a customer actually "purchase" anything before the duty to exercise reasonable care by the corporation, business owner or land occupier/owner is met.
Common accidents include slip and falls on ice and snow in the expansive and massive parking lots or on sidewalks of these types of big box stores. Other accidents could involve slips and falls in entryways or aisles after mopping has occurred but before a warning sign is erected.
Even more common is the falling merchandise upon unsuspecting customers due to the stacking policies of inventory by the big box stores placing heavy items high upon shelves where customers sometimes reach.
Shaw Law knows how to gather store videos, witness statements and incident reports to help you present your best case of negligence against the big box stores. If the case requires litigation, we know the retail safety experts necessary to present opinions about the safety policies of the big box stores throughout the State of Indiana.
Although big box stores like WalMart, Target and Meijer are popular shopping locations, each is required to enact and follow proper safety rules and guidelines to ensure a safe environment for customers (and employees). Sometimes, we have discovered that these stores do not properly assign clear responsibilities or rules to the staff and employees, which can lead to a serious accident and injury for a big box customer.
For example, Meijer Stores has a policy of assigning all employees with the duty to watch entryways for accumulations of ice, snow and liquids that naturally occur when customers walk from wet or snowy outside conditions into a warm store.
While this policy might seem adequate at first, we discovered that when "all" employees share the duty of observation, then it is more likely that no employee takes an active interest in seeing that clean floors and entrances are maintained (since each employee assumes somebody else will do the job). A much better policy is to have specific employees inspect the floors and entrances on a timely, frequent and periodic basis.
