Two years ago, a client of ours came into the office because she experienced a relatively common accident. At a local grocery store, our client slipped and fell onto the hard linoleum floor where she was walking. She walked in front of the meat refrigerator, when she abruptly fell because of a puddle of standing water that was there. The puddle came from a leaking cooler near the area. Unfortunately, there were no signs or any kind of warning devices nearby. These warnings should have been there to alert our client or any potential Giant customer of the hazard that lay ahead.
Our client was a business invitee of a local supermarket which means she is a person entering commercial premises for the purpose of doing business, in her case, to buy groceries. As a business invitee onto the supermarket’s property, she was entitled to a reasonable standard of care. This meant providing for our client reasonably safe conditions while she was in the grocery store. Business owners certainly fall into this category of commercial premises who owe the duty of care to their customers.
Our client’s injury was to her right knee which sustained the brunt of her entire body’s weight impacting the hard surface. She now endures constant, significant pain and burning requiring hours of physical rehabilitation. In fact, our client was not even able to wear jeans due to the amount of pain caused by the slip and fall because the fabric rubbed uncomfortably against the skin of her knee cap. The rehabilitation of her injury was supposed to last for a month, about three times a week. This would have been very time consuming for an injury that never should have happened to begin with. Our client was unable to continue the treatments however, when she could no longer afford the payments for rehabbing her right knee.
As her firm, Ciccarelli Law Offices represented her strongly throughout negotiations and brought to light that the supermarket did or should have known about the potential for hazardous surfaces within their store. As a supermarket, an obvious risk is liquid on linoleum floors. It was surely foreseeable that any areas containing liquids had the potential to leak onto the floor. This was the case before our client regarding the meat coolers. Proper precautions should have been taken to avoid a predictable injury like this. Remember, as a business invitee, our client was entitled to this and reasonably safe conditions while at the supermarket. By not posting signs or warnings to advise our client or any other customer of the slippery conditions, it was negligent in maintaining their commercial premises. Soon after this was established our firm,the supermarket realized their mistake and agreed to settle with our client.
Our attorneys are here to help lead you through the complicated legal process. Ciccarelli Law Offices are headquartered in West Chester but also have offices in many of the surrounding counties. If someone else is liable for the injuries you have sustained, you should be compensated for the costs of your injuries. Our experienced Personal Injury attorneys are persistent and successful in our cases for all of our clients who have experienced personal injuries. Call us for more information or any questions you may have at 610-692-8700 or toll free at 877-529-2422.