Stores are supposed to be safe places to shop. Shopkeepers and property owners have a responsibility to make them safe. Unfortunately, store managers often neglect potential hazards that can lead to slip and fall accidents. These are most common in grocery stores, where there are so many different potential hazards, including produce, beverage, and even soap spills that create slippery surfaces.
Pet stores try to be welcoming by letting customers bring in their dogs, but this has the potential to lead to unexpected “puddles” that lead to slips. Hardware stores are also full of numerous hazards that can spill, including paint, solvents, gravel, and nails or screws. Even your friendly local comic book store might have aisles so crowded with collectible bric-a-brac that you can’t see your footing, and those glossy pages are slippery when left on the ground. Stores that try to create an immersive experience with mood lighting don’t help, either.
No matter the type of store, if you fell and suffered significant injury, you deserve compensation for your damages and to aid in recovery. At Fisher & Talwar, we have helped many people get the money they need to pay bills, make up for lost wages, and fully recover from their injuries. We offer a free, no-obligation consultation for your slip and fall accident, and we will never charge you for fees or expenses unless we win your case.
What to Do If You Fall in a Store
After a slip and fall in a store – a grocery store or any other type of retail store, what you do next is very important. Your actions after your slip and fall can either preserve your rights and help you get compensation or make it all but impossible to get compensation for your injuries. Here are the steps you should take to preserve your rights and options:
- Seek medical care right away: If you can’t get up, either call an ambulance for yourself or have someone call it for you. If it hurts to move, it might be better to err on the side of caution. However, even if you think you’re fine, you should still see a doctor. Some slip and fall injuries may take days or longer for symptoms to manifest, though a doctor can detect them earlier. Seeing a doctor creates documentation of your injuries, which can be important later.
- Document the scene of your accident: If you can, document the place where you fell. While you’re waiting for help to arrive, take pictures of the scene with your phone. Try to identify what conditions made you slip or trip, and figure out as much about its properties as you can. The texture, color, and size of the spill matters. Also look for footprints going into and out of the spill. If you aren’t able to document the scene, ask your companions to do it for you, as soon as possible. If necessary, ask a witness to do it for you—but get their contact information. If you can walk, make sure you document the scene before you leave. If you can’t document the scene before you leave, ask a friend or family member to go to the scene immediately and get any pictures they can.
- Identify witnesses: If anybody saw you slip or noticed the condition that caused your slip, get their contact information before you leave the scene.
- Preserve evidence: It’s important to preserve potential traces of the cause of your slip and fall. These can sometimes be found on your shoes or clothes, so put these into a plastic bag as soon as you have a change of clothes. Even if any traces were removed in the process of walking from the store to your car, preserving what you wore shows that your footwear, for example, was not the cause of your fall.
- Report your fall: Make a report to the store about your fall. They may have a specific system for incident reports. You don’t have to file a report before you leave or visit the store in person again to file a report. Sometimes, if you have a fall, the store manager will try to get you to accept compensation or otherwise resolve the incident. Do not do this without a lawyer present. Also remember that the store will try to use your words to cast you in an unfavorable light, so speak carefully. If you’re not confident in your ability to manage your words, you can contact a lawyer before you make your report.
- Contact a slip and fall attorney: It doesn’t always make sense to file a slip and fall lawsuit, but you won’t know whether it makes sense in your case until you talk to someone with knowledge of the law and experience with these types of lawsuits. If they offer free, no-obligation consultations, there is no risk in talking to a lawyer and getting answers to your questions.
How a Slip and Fall Lawyer Can Help
When you contact a slip and fall lawyer, you will immediately get the benefit of their knowledge. They can help you understand your options in this situation and how to pursue the best outcome, whether that’s with their help or on your own. You can describe your injuries and your bills, as well as any settlement offers you’ve received. They can let you know whether it makes sense to accept the settlement or not.
With their knowledge and experience, a slip and fall lawyer can help you:
- Understand your likelihood of future bills
- Know which bills can be delayed so you can manage money better
- Negotiate a higher settlement
- Show that your injuries were caused by your fall
- Build a case to show the store owner’s negligence
- Follow the legal requirements to get compensation
- Fight for compensation in court if necessary
Insurance companies, whether your own or the store owners’, are always looking to settle claims for less. It is helpful for them to offer you a settlement before you know how much your injuries are really going to cost. That settlement may seem large, but in the final accounting it may not be enough. Don’t take a settlement without getting an expert opinion about your likely total costs.
If you need help managing bills in the short term, talk to someone about which bills can be delayed until your case is resolved. Having evidence that your injuries were caused by the fall, and that the owner’s negligence is to blame can help you negotiate a higher settlement. Although slip and fall cases rarely go to trial, being willing to go to trial can also lead to higher settlements.
Why Work with Fisher & Talwar
At Fisher & Talwar, our partners will personally handle your injury claim. We think it’s important that your case is always handled by a highly qualified lawyer, so we never take more cases than we can handle personally.
Fisher & Talwar are experienced personal injury lawyers who have handled many premises liability and slip and fall lawsuits, including slip and falls in grocery stores, hardware stores, pet stores, department stores, toy stores, and more. We know how to handle these cases, including how to negotiate high settlements quickly when possible. However, we also know how to assemble the evidence, build a case, and take it to court if that’s in the best interest of our clients. You will never be forced to accept an inferior settlement because we’re not ready to go to court. Our track record of successes speaks for itself. Look over our recent verdicts and settlements, and you will see that we have helped our clients receive millions for their injuries and losses.
In addition, we take care to protect you during the lawsuit process. We work on a contingency basis: we don’t get paid unless you get paid. Some lawyers will pass the lawsuit costs on to their clients–we don’t do that. You will never have to pay our costs, whether we win or lose your case. You don’t need extra bills or worries at this time.
Slip and Fall in Stores FAQs
What is the statute of limitations for slip and fall in California?
In most cases of slip and fall accidents, you have two years to file a lawsuit over your injuries. However, in some cases, you might have a year or less. It’s a good idea to talk to a slip and fall lawyer soon after your accident to determine what statute of limitations applies in your case.
Can I still sue if I was partly at fault for my slip and fall?
California liability laws are often described as pure comparative liability. This means that you can sue someone who is even 1% responsible for your injuries. However, they only have to pay the fraction of your expenses that corresponds to their degree of liability, which would be 1% in this case. Obviously, in cases where you are mostly at fault for your injuries, it might not be worth it to go to court. If you feel you are partly responsible for your injuries, talk to an experienced slip and fall lawyer about whether it makes sense to sue.
What should I take pictures of after my slip and fall in a grocery store?
After your slip and fall, it’s important to take pictures that can support your case. One important factor is showing that a spill was large enough or had been around long enough that the owner or their representatives should have known about it and removed it or at least placed sufficient warnings to help you avoid the fall. Take pictures of the floor, the size of the spill, whether there are footprints going through the spill area, and the source of the substance if you can see it.
You can’t take pictures of this, but you should also note the smell of the substance, its texture, and whether it has attracted insects.
I feel fine after I fell. Should I still see a doctor?
Yes. First, you might not understand the seriousness of your injuries after your fall. Second, visiting the doctor creates a record of your injuries. This record can be used as evidence to help show that your injuries are related to your fall.
Contact California Store Slip and Fall Attorneys Today
You should immediately call an attorney so that he or she can contact the store owner and request that the evidence be preserved.
If you fell in a store and got hurt as a result of it, please contact us right away.