Slip and fall accidents can occur both indoors and outdoors, but they are widespread at locations where food or liquid tends to spill onto the floor — such as the grocery section of a Walmart or Walmart Supercenter. When a person slips and falls, they may hit the ground with a significant amount of force, causing severe injuries like broken bones, spinal cord damage, and traumatic head and brain injuries.
If you or someone you love recently sustained injuries in a Walmart slip and fall accident, you may recover monetary damages to compensate you for your injuries. However, you should immediately seek legal representation to do so.
Walmart and similar large corporations have skilled and experienced insurance and legal teams representing them. It is in your interest to have the same. Legal battles are the last thing anyone should worry about after they've suffered an injury. Let your lawyer handle the entire injury claim process for you.
A knowledgeable slip and fall accident attorney in your area can first investigate the circumstances of your accident, speak with witnesses, and determine your eligibility for filing a personal injury claim. Your attorney can gather pertinent documents and present the claim to Walmart's insurance carrier on your behalf. Your lawyer will take over all insurance communications and settlement negotiations and pursue litigation in your case if that step becomes necessary.
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Throughout all the legal proceedings, your attorney will aggressively advocate for you, answer your questions, and pursue the maximum monetary compensation available in your case.
You should focus on your medical treatment and physical recovery. Leave the legal process to a trusted professional who represents slip and fall victims against major corporations.
Common Injuries in Walmart Slip and Fall Accidents
Walmart shoppers who fall on the ground are at a severe disadvantage compared to motor vehicle drivers and passengers involved in a car accident. Unlike these individuals, patrons at a Walmart store do not have an outer shell or covering that surrounds them when they fall to the ground.
Instead, they have little to no protection from their environment, and if a part of their body strikes the ground with a significant amount of force, they may suffer severe injuries.
The injuries that a Walmart shopper might suffer in a slip and fall accident depend on the amount of force they strike the ground with, the accident location, the accident circumstances, and how they land on the ground after their fall.
Some of the most common slip and fall injuries that accident victims may sustain include soft tissue neck and back contusions, spinal cord injuries, full and partial paralysis injuries, traumatic brain injuries, internal organ damage, internal bleeding, rib fractures, bone fractures, mouth and teeth injuries, open cuts and lacerations.
If you suffered any of these injuries in your Walmart slip and fall accident, make your top priority to complete your medical treatment regimen. For example, you might need to undergo surgery or other medical procedures, attend physical therapy sessions, or consult with a medical specialist, such as an orthopedic doctor, regarding your injuries.
By completing all your medical treatment and attending all medical appointments, you show Walmart's insurance company that your injuries are severe and that you deserve favorable monetary compensation. Additionally, you increase your chances of making a full recovery from your accident-related injuries.
While you focus on attending medical appointments and getting the treatment you need, your lawyer can gather important documents and assemble a settlement demand package.
Once your medical treatment is complete or your doctors know the ongoing future treatment you will need, your lawyer can submit this demand package to the insurance company and begin pursuing a favorable settlement offer on your behalf.
Walmart's Legal Duty of Care
Walmart and other department stores owe their shoppers a high legal duty of care. Individuals who enter Walmart's premises during business hours are business invitees. In general, Walmart must maintain their business premises in a reasonably safe condition for the benefit of their customers. In addition, if the store knows about a particular hazard or defect on their premises, such as a spill on the floor, they must warn about or correct the condition within a reasonable amount of time.
Furthermore, managers and other Walmart employees have a duty to inspect the store premises regularly for any unknown, latent conditions. If they encounter a hazard during their search, they must take reasonable measures to adequately warn about or correct it. If they fail to do so, and a slip and fall accident occurs, the store may need to pay for the resulting injuries and damages.
A knowledgeable slip and fall accident attorney in your area can review the circumstances of your accident with you and determine if Walmart likely violated its legal duty of care. If so, your attorney can investigate the accident circumstances further and potentially file a personal injury claim or lawsuit with Walmart on your behalf.
Successfully Proving a Walmart Slip-and-fall Case
In addition to establishing that Walmart owed them a legal duty of care, injured accident victims must satisfy several other legal elements to recover monetary damages for their slip and fall injuries. Specifically, an accident victim must establish that Walmart violated their legal duty of care.
For example, a store manager might have failed to clean up a known spill or correct some other defect within a reasonable amount of time after becoming aware of the fault. Next, the slip and fall accident victim must show that their accident was both a direct and foreseeable result of Walmart's negligence.
Finally, the accident victim must establish that as a direct result of their slip and fall, they suffered at least one physical injury in their accident.
Your slip and fall accident attorney can establish these legal elements so that you can recover monetary compensation and damages for your injuries.
What a Lawyer Can Do Following Your Slip and Fall Accident at Walmart
Walmart's insurance company is likely to fight you every step of the way in your slip fall accident case. Consequently, retain your own legal counsel as early in the process as possible. Your attorney can retain several experts who can support your version of events and, if necessary, testify as witnesses in your case.
First, if Walmart's insurance company disputes liability for the slip and fall accident or alleges that Walmart didn’t know about the defective condition, your lawyer can retain an accident reconstructionist.
An expert accident reconstructionist can visit the scene, review photographs and camera footage, speak with witnesses, review incident reports, and speak with you about how the accident happened. They can then draft their own report stating their findings and conclusions about how the accident occurred and who was responsible.
Additionally, your lawyer can retain a treating healthcare provider as a medical expert to support your case. That medical provider can physically examine you and draft a report that causally relates your claimed injuries to the slip and fall accident at Walmart. The medical provider can also establish, to a reasonable degree of medical probability, the permanence of your injury or injuries (for example, a full or partial paralysis injury).
In addition to retaining favorable experts in your case, your lawyer can assemble a settlement demand package that supports your personal injury claim. A demand package will typically include a demand letter that makes a monetary demand for settlement, along with essential documents, including incident reports, injury photographs, witness statements, medical records, medical bills, and loss income documentation from your employer.
Once assembled, your lawyer will submit this package to Walmart's insurance company on your behalf. If Walmart accepts fault for the slip and fall accident, settlement discussions may begin.
In most situations, an initial settlement offer from a large insurance company will likely be very low and far less than the actual value. Insurance companies try to undervalue personal injury claims to avoid making a significant financial payout to an accident victim.
After all, insurance companies may lose exceedingly high amounts of money if they have to pay out a large settlement or jury verdict in a slip and fall accident case. However, in response to the insurance company's likely low offer, your attorney can highlight the strengths of your medical records and other favorable aspects of your case.
Furthermore, if the insurance company refuses to increase its initial settlement offer, your lawyer can threaten Walmart with personal injury litigation in court.
If your case must go to litigation, your attorney can handle every step of the process. First, your lawyer can file a lawsuit in court on your behalf and handle the discovery process.
During discovery, your lawyer can prepare you for your deposition and answer all written questions (called interrogatories) on your behalf. Your attorney can also represent you at all court proceedings, including settlement conferences. Finally, throughout the litigation stage of your case, your attorney can guide you when deciding whether you should accept an increased settlement offer or resolve your case at a litigation court proceeding.
Finally, if your case must go to a civil jury trial or binding arbitration hearing, your lawyer can aggressively represent you, introduce favorable evidence on your behalf, and pursue the maximum monetary compensation you deserve to recover for your injuries.
Potential Monetary Damages in Walmart Slip and Fall Accident Cases
Individuals who suffer injuries in a Walmart slip and fall accident may have high medical bills and other out-of-pocket expenses. In addition, their injuries may prevent them from working for a significant amount of time, resulting in lost earnings.
The total monetary damages that a slip and fall accident victim can recover will depend on the circumstances of their accident, the specific injuries they suffered, the medical treatment they underwent, and the amount of money their medical treatment cost.
Accident victims can pursue monetary compensation for:
- Past and anticipated medical costs,
- Lost earnings
- Loss of earning capacity
- Permanent disfigurement or disability
- Loss of spousal consortium
- Mental anguish and distress
- Inconvenience
- Pain and suffering
- Loss of the ability to use a specific body part
- Lost quality of life
Your attorney will fight for your legal rights at every stage of your personal injury case and seek the highest amount of monetary compensation available. Your attorney can do this by downplaying any weaknesses in your case, highlighting the strengths of your case, and aggressively arguing for your rights in litigation proceedings.
Call a Walmart Slip and Fall Accident Lawyer Right Away about Your Potential Legal Options
If you recently suffered injuries in a Walmart slip and fall accident, seek the legal services of an experienced personal injury attorney immediately. Victims of slip and fall accidents have only two years from the date of their accident to file a personal injury claim for monetary compensation in the court system. If the accident victim files their lawsuit even one day after the statute of limitations deadline expires, they will no longer be eligible for monetary damages.
A Walmart slip and fall accident attorney can meet with you right away to discuss your accident scenario and determine your eligibility for filing a claim or lawsuit. If the statute of limitations is running short in your case, your attorney can quickly prepare and file a lawsuit in the court system.
Your lawyer can also handle all settlement negotiations and represent you in all legal proceedings in court. Your attorney will be by your side every step of the way, answering your legal questions and aggressively pursuing the compensation you need and deserve for your slip and fall injuries. Most importantly, your lawyer can do all this for you, for free, while you focus on recovering from your injuries.