STORE INJURY SETTLEMENTS – WHAT TO DO IF YOU SLIP AND FALL IN A STORE

Although stores and supermarkets are generally safe, there can be occasional hazards that increase the likelihood of store injury settlements being pursued.

The most common situation is a slip-and-fall in a store, but there’s also the possibility of something falling on a person or other types of accidents occurring. Shopping injuries can occur when stores are negligent and in unsafe conditions.

Whenever you’re at a store, the business is legally required to ensure that the premises are reasonably safe. If you were injured while in a store or anywhere on that business’s property, such as the area outside the front doors, then the business may be responsible for any damages you suffered.

To ensure you get the store injury settlements you deserve with as little stress as possible, here is what to do if you are injured in a store.

Have Your Free Case Review for Store Injury Settlements

If you have been injured in a store, a GJEL slip and fall accident lawyer can offer a free review of your grocery store slip and fall settlements.

GJEL’s experienced lawyers have recovered over $3.5 million for injury accidents, and we can help you win the slip-and-fall grocery store settlements you deserve for your losses, pain, and suffering.

GJEL Is An Award-Winning Personal Injury Law Firm

GJEL personal injury law firm is your best option to represent you in your grocery store slip and fall settlements. Our firm has been representing injured clients for over 45 years and is ranked as one of the top firms nationwide by our peers. Our accident attorneys have a 99% success rate, are featured in the Best Lawyers in America, and have been selected as California Super Lawyers. Let a store injury lawyer from GJEL put our experience to work on your case.

GJEL Store Injury Lawyers

“I fell in a store. What should I do?”

You may need to contact a store injury lawyer with experience in retail and grocery store slip and fall settlements. Stores generally have a team of attorneys and insurance adjusters working hard to minimize or deny slip-and-fall grocery store settlements and retail store injury settlements. That’s why you need an aggressive attorney on your side.

Our team of store accident lawyers and expert assistants can make sure you are properly reimbursed for any losses or damage you may have suffered.

How GJEL Can Help

Winning grocery store slip-and-fall settlements can be a complicated task. You need a grocery store injury lawyer who knows how to sue a store for injury. Our attorneys have extensive experience in personal injury cases involving stores and know how to build a strong case that helps you get the best possible store injury settlements from the responsible parties.

What to Do if You Slip and Fall in a Store

Step 1: Safety First

Immediately after the incident occurs, your priority is your health and safety. Be careful about moving around if you’re in pain or feel uncomfortable, and call for help if necessary. If you’ve fallen and you don’t feel well, stay there. You can exacerbate injuries by moving.

If you feel like you need medical attention right away, call 911 or ask someone to call for you after you’ve gotten help.

Step 2: Collect Any Evidence You Can

Whether you’re able to do this will obviously depend on your condition. Don’t feel like you need to if you’re not feeling 100 percent. If you have someone shopping with you, ask them to help.

If you’re up for it, look around the area where the incident occurred. See if you can determine what the cause was and what hazards were there. You should also check if there were any signs indicating those hazards.

Any visual evidence you obtain can help quite a bit in future store injury settlements. If you have a smartphone on you, use it to snap some photos or take videos of the area.

Step 3: Get Contact Information for Any Witnesses

Witness testimony is also a huge help. If the store later tries to claim that whatever happened was your fault in the store injury settlements, an unbiased third party could convince a judge that it was the store, and not you, that was negligent.

Most people who witness a possible injury will stop to help or at least ask if you’re okay, which means it probably won’t be too difficult to talk to any witnesses. If no one comes up to you, you can ask those in the area if they saw what happened.

For any witnesses you find, make sure you get their contact information. Keep in mind that someone can be a valuable witness even if they didn’t see exactly what happened to you. They could still testify regarding a hazard in the store or the conditions that ended up causing your injury.

Step 4: Let an Employee Know What Happened

If an employee hasn’t approached you already, you should find one and tell them what happened. Stores make reports whenever there’s an accident on the property.

You can give the first employee you see a general idea of what happened, and then provide a more detailed account when the store is making its official report of the incident.

As you’re making your report, stick to the facts and don’t say anything that could be construed as an admission of fault. When in doubt, keep it simple. Don’t speculate on why the incident happened or the extent of your injuries. The last thing you want to do is give the store anything they can use against you to avoid paying for your store injury settlements.

Make sure you don’t sign anything, either. Some stores will try to get you to sign a liability release after an accident occurs, which can prevent you from pursuing a case against them. Contact a lawyer for injury at the store before making any rash decisions!

Step 5: Go to the Doctor

You should see a doctor as soon as you can after the incident, even if you feel fine. There are two reasons for this.

The first is that even if you don’t notice any symptoms, you could still have sustained an injury. Head, back, and neck injuries, in particular, sometimes don’t have immediate symptoms, or the symptoms could be so minor that you barely notice them. Without getting these injuries diagnosed, they can get worse.

The second is that a medical report can help you in your case. Let’s say that your injuries cause you to miss a week of work, and your store injury settlements will be set for your lost wages and other expenses. It’s the store’s responsibility to pay you for your lost wages, but for that to happen, you need a medical report verifying that you have injuries and aren’t taking a week off just because.

Step 6: Consider Consulting with an Attorney

Whether you have all kinds of evidence supporting your case, or it could come down to your word versus the store’s, your best chance of receiving compensation for your damages is by hiring a skilled personal injury attorney.

Types of Store Accidents

You never really think about store accidents until one happens to you. This brief intro provides a list of the types of possible accidents that can happen in retail stores. If you have suffered damages from an accident of this type, an experienced GJEL store accident lawyer can help you navigate the various steps that lead to the best possible slip-and-fall grocery store settlements and retail store settlements.

Slipping on Wet Flooring

Many slip-and-fall grocery store settlements involve injuries caused by the plaintiff slipping on a wet floor. Wet floors can be the result of mopping, spilled liquids, melted snow, or many other possible causes. Wet flooring accidents can lead to serious injuries, especially if they involve wet stairs.

Falling Items from Shelves

People often ask “can you sue a store if you fall?” But you should also consider store injuries caused by items falling from shelves. Carelessly stacked items can cause serious harm to unsuspecting customers, and a large object could lead to life-changing or even fatal injuries if it tips over.

Tripping in Places With Dim Lighting

Many slips and falls in stores are caused by customers tripping in dimly lit places. Poor lighting can make otherwise safe areas dangerous, and can also make it more difficult to spot hazardous conditions. Inadequate lighting is a form of negligence and stores may be liable for injuries caused thereby.

Falling Down Narrow Steps

Slip-and-fall grocery store settlements often involve injuries caused by a customer falling down narrow steps. Store operators have a legal responsibility to keep their property safe and take all reasonable steps to prevent staircase hazards. If you are injured due to their negligence, they are liable for damages.

Slipping on Careless Sidewalks

Grocery store slip-and-fall settlements that involve negligently maintained sidewalks can become very complicated. Depending on where you slipped, liability may rest with the store, the facility owner, or the municipality. Determining who is liable may require significant research, so you want an experienced legal team on your side.

Catastrophe by Malfunctions of Elevators

Falls down open elevator shafts, trips and falls due to misaligned elevator floors, or crushing injuries caused by doors can lead to serious trauma or even death. An experienced elevator injury attorney knows where to send retail store injury demand letters and who can be held responsible for negligence.

Common Injuries From Store Accidents

Because almost everybody shops at stores at least once in a while, there are many opportunities for accidents caused by the store’s negligence. Personal injuries at retail establishments are usually minor, but can sometimes be very serious or even fatal. Here are some of the most common injuries that arise from store accidents. If you have suffered any of these injuries, you need to contact a store accident lawyer with experience in settling and litigating retail store injury claims.

Broken Bones

Even what seems like a relatively minor fall can lead to painful fractures and huge medical bills. More serious slips and falls caused by retail store negligence can leave you with compound fractures that require surgery and physical therapy and may result in permanent partial or total disability.

Soft Tissue Injuries

Soft tissue injuries involving sprains, strains, and tears of the ligaments, tendons, and muscles of the body may require physical therapy, braces, corticosteroid injections, or even surgery. These injuries can lead to lasting pain (especially with movement), numbness, tingling, and reduced range of motion.

Spinal Cord Injuries

Some of the largest slip-and-fall grocery store settlements/retail store injury settlements involve spinal cord injuries. Slips and falls cause over 30% of spinal cord injuries, second only to vehicular accidents. Spinal cord injuries can lead to partial or total paralysis, loss of sensation, and ongoing neuralgic pain.

Cranial Injuries

Cranial injuries can happen when you slip and your head hits a floor, shelf, display, or other hard objects. Cranial injuries can lead to skull fractures, brain swelling or hematomas, and life-changing traumatic brain injuries. Negligence leaves the store liable for your injuries in retail and grocery store slip and fall settlements.

Cuts And Bruises

Bruising, cuts, and scrapes are the most common outcome of slip and fall accidents. While these injuries do not typically cause lasting damage, you may be entitled to store injury settlements for lost wages, medical bills, or pain and suffering caused by the store’s negligence.

Types Of Damages You Can Recover in Store Injury Settlements

If you are wondering what to do when you slip and fall in a store, one important step is to determine your recoverable damages. An experienced attorney can help you get all the compensation to which you are entitled.

Economic Damages

Economic damages are monetary losses that can be objectively verified, like medical expenses, loss of earnings, loss of use of property, repair or replacement costs, loss of domestic services, and loss of employment. A skilled personal injury attorney knows how to file a complaint against a retail store that covers your losses and that includes all necessary documentation and proof.

Non-Economic Damages

Loss of society, companionship, consortium, and enjoyment of life are examples of non-economic damages. While it is more difficult to put exact numbers on your losses, a store accident lawyer, who represents you in retail store negligence settlements, has a good idea of what you can expect for the pain, suffering, inconvenience, and any emotional distress caused by your accident.

Punitive Damages

On top of compensatory damages, a defendant who is grossly or criminally negligent or who intentionally harmed the plaintiff may be ordered to pay punitive damages. Courts award these damages not as compensation for injured plaintiffs but as punishment for defendants who were aware of the risks but willfully refused to take the steps required to mitigate the dangers.

How To Sue a Store For an Injury

In cases involving accidents on store property, it can be tough to prove liability. When you hire an attorney to represent you in the store injury settlements, they’ll immediately start investigating what happened.

They’ll analyze any evidence you were able to gather, contact witnesses and see if the store had video cameras recording the area where the accident occurred. If there was a hazard in the store, your attorney will look into how long this hazard had been around and if there’s any evidence the business knew about it.

By trying to handle the situation on your own, you’ll be dealing with the store’s insurance company and possibly its lawyers. They will likely either deny negligence or try to negotiate down to paying you the smallest amount possible. You need someone on your side who has your best interests at heart and can advise you on how to proceed.

Hire the Best Lawyer for Your Store Injury Settlements

If you’ve been seriously injured in a store, we can help. Contact GJEL Accident Attorneys as soon as possible for a consultation, where we’ll go over your store injury settlements and put together the best strategy.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What Happens When You are Injured in a Store?

If you have been injured in a store, check your and everybody else’s health and safety. The store may be liable for your damages, but their attorneys and adjusters are going to work hard to minimize retail store negligence settlements or avoid them altogether.

To protect your rights, gather as much evidence of retail store negligence as you can. Speak to the manager and to any other witnesses, and take pictures of the accident site.

See a doctor as soon as possible so you can get an idea of the extent of your injuries. Gather any documents required to file an insurance claim for negligence. Most importantly, speak to a store accident lawyer with experience in store injury settlements.

Is a Store Liable for a Customer Injury?

According to OSHA, retail store negligence is responsible for 9 out of 10 customer accidents. In these cases, the stores are liable for any damage caused by their avoidable errors. GJEL attorneys know how to sue a retail store, how to hold them accountable for your medical and financial losses, and how to make sure you get the best possible settlement or verdict for your pain and suffering.

What to Do if a Customer is Injured?

The first thing to do is to seek medical attention for the injured party. You should inspect the area where your customer was injured to determine what caused the accident. Collect witness statements from employees and other customers who saw the accident. Then, because it is likely your injured customer will be contacting a store accident lawyer who knows how to sue a store for injury, contact your insurance provider so they can prepare a defense and arrange a settlement.