If you were to ask most people how they’d describe a grocery store, they’d likely mention their bright lights and shiny floors. That’s deliberate because those things help maintain a clean atmosphere for food products and shoppers. But those shiny floors can also pose a serious hazard, at times, when they get slick.
One of the biggest dangers at a grocery store occurs when people enter the building from a wet, icy or snowy parking lot. Water often puddles near the front doors and gets tracked into the store’s entryway, posing a slip and fall danger.
There are a lot of hazardous areas in the grocery store, however, for unwary shoppers. Consider these:
- Produce can fall on the ground causing a customer or employee to tumble and fall. The same holds if someone drops something off the shelf and fails to notify a store employee to come to clean it up. Oils, butter and other greasy substances pose a significant injury risk to anyone who walks down an aisle at the supermarket. They may not only slip on it but also strike their head or body on the things around them as they fall.
- Any refrigeration equipment or freezers can malfunction, causing them to defrost. The ice may melt and create a puddle underneath a freezer case, causing a slip-and-fall risk for everyone who walks by.
- There can be unusual hazards due to equipment, boxes of goods and displays in the aisles. Customers may also not notice a product display, or restocking cart placed in the aisle and run into it, injuring both themselves and others. Or, they may think a display is permanent and lean into it, not realizing that it can easily slide away from them, causing a fall.
- Self-service beverage stations, areas nearest outlets where extension cords may get plugged in or poorly marked stairs or curbs can all pose slip and fall dangers. It’s not uncommon for rugs with curled edges to trip individuals up as they enter a store, for customers not to notice that a floor hasn’t finished drying after mopping or waxing or for damaged flooring to cause someone to lose their footing either.
The good news is that Indiana law allows you to recover compensation if you suffer injuries due to someone else’s negligence. A personal injury attorney will want to know more about what led up to your incident before letting you know what legal options you can pursue in your case.
