Van Dorn & Curtiss Blog

Accidents in Retail Stores

There was recently a 7 million dollar recovery for a woman who was seriously injured when an automatic door at a Target store malfunctioned knocking her to the ground and causing a serious head injury.  The elderly victim suffered a serious brain injury and could no longer take care of her special needs adult daughter. Learn more about the incident in this article from the Chicago Tribune website.
In our accident law legal practice we have handled many claims that occur when retail stores are negligent in maintaining their premises in a reasonably safe condition for  customers. While retail stores don't guarantee the safety of customers it makes sense that they should be required to take reasonable steps to make sure dangerous conditions on the property are corrected. In this case it was a malfunctioning door that knocked the elderly woman to the ground and caused the injury. In other cases it can be allowing slippery conditions on store floors to exist without reasonable effort to clean them up. Other cases involve tripping hazards in store aisles and falling boxes. Retail stores want our business and invite us in to look at the products on the shelves.  It makes sense that they should provide safe places for customers to walk when they are expected to look at the products on the shelves, not at the floor. To learn more about premises liability law click here to go the premises liability section of our website.