Walmart on Woollomes Avenue in Delano welcomes hundreds of customers a day and that foot traffic can create hazards to you and your family. An obstacle left sitting on an aisle by an employee or a shopper can put you on the ground after a slip or a trip. If you suffer a serious injury like a concussion or a broken bone, you should be able to depend on Walmart for help with your recovery bills.
The Delano slip-and-fall lawyers at Maison Law will help you hold Walmart and its insurance provider fully responsible for hospital bills and other hardships after an accident and injury. Contact us to set up a free consultation about your case. There’s no obligation for your consultation. It’s a no-risk way to find out what your injury is worth and how to make sure Walmart can’t escape its duty to help you.
Who Is Responsible If I Slip-And-Fall at the Delano Walmart?
Under California’s premises liability laws, businesses owe their customers a “duty of care.” This duty covers shoppers who are invited into department stores and supermarkets like Walmart each day. The corporate owners and employees are responsible for providing a safe path for you and your family from the parking lot all the way to the back aisle of Walmart.
Managers and employees must monitor aisles and bathrooms for potential hazards and fix or clean them up before you have the chance to walk up and suffer an injury. They must take care of hazards that employees create and spills that another customer could leave on the floor. When they don’t find and erase these dangers in a reasonable amount of time, and you take a fall, you should expect to be fully supported while you recover.
What If Walmart Tries to Blame Me for My Fall?
Walmart’s corporate lawyers and insurance adjusters won’t usually provide instant support, even if they know Walmart employees were at fault. Adjusters may say you were clumsy and caused your own accident. They could say your shoes were too worn out and that’s what caused you to slip.
A Delano Slip-And-Fall Lawyer fights back against these attempts to discredit a victim’s injuries. Your lawyer would secure all evidence, including surveillance video and witness testimony to show you weren’t to blame. Medical charts would show the seriousness of your injuries and perhaps the long-term effect they’ll have on your life. A strong case makes it much more difficult for Walmart to question or deny your injury claim.
In some cases, victims and business owners can both be found partly to blame for a slip-and-fall accident. If you were looking at a cell phone when you fell, you might be assigned part of the fault in the accident. But Walmart could also be hit with a percentage of the blame.
Victims could still ask for compensation equal to Walmart’s percentage of liability. Your lawyer would fight to get Walmart’s percentage of blame as high as possible. And if you actually didn’t deserve any of the blame, your lawyer would work tirelessly to prevent you from having to accept any fault in what happened.
Walmart Slip-And-Fall Accident Dangers
You may not realize the dangers that exist inside stores like Walmart and Smart & Final until you start looking for them.
These and other obstacles can all be left in areas of major foot traffic, and the odds are that someone will end up getting injured:
- Spills and Leaks — These seemingly minor hazards cause serious injuries every day. Another shopper may drip ice and soda on an aisle that sits there for an hour or more. A puddle of water can form on the floor of the produce section. Cleaning solutions or soapy water might end up on a bathroom floor and go un-mopped for hours. These risks must be cleaned up before you come along and suffer a painful slip-and-fall.
- Floor Tripping Hazards – Merchandise, a display, or candy might be littering or blocking the floor of Walmart on an aisle or in a check-out lane. Your foot may catch on a rug or a box, sending you down to land on a kneecap or your face to bust some teeth loose. Broken tile could send you into a trip-and-fall accident.
- Parking Lot Hazards – Potholes are a major hazard, and not just for cars. You may step in a hole that should have been patched, only to fall and fracture a hip. Broken cement on sidewalks could cause you to trip and fall and throw your hands out to catch yourself, only to break a wrist or arm bone.
- Landscaping Hazards – Natural barriers, low bushes, loose landscaping timbers, and mulch washing into parking lots can provide dangerous trip and fall obstacles.
What Sort of Things Contribute to the Amount on My Slip-and-Fall Settlement Check?
After taking a fall on an obstacle, you should take photos of that hazard if you are left strong enough. There’s a good chance that the danger will be removed or cleaned up by the time you or your lawyer can return to the scene. You should also get contact information from any witnesses.
This evidence will help build a strong case that forces Walmart to pay you what’s fair for your injuries.
Your Trip-And-Fall Lawyer from Delano’s Maison Law will be compiling a list of every financial burden you’ve suffered and every hardship you’ve faced since your accident. This could include money for a long-term or permanent injury such as a hip fracture that threatens to make walking a painful activity for the rest of your life.
These and other factors will determine how much an insurance company will offer you in a settlement check:
- All current medical expenses and those expected in the future.
- The lifelong expenses associated with a permanent disability.
- Compensation for the physical pain suffered and perhaps chronic pain for a lifetime.
- Compensation for emotional trauma. The anxiety, depression, and PTSD that may arise after a frightening slip-and-fall and during a difficult recovery. A patient’s enjoyment of life may be affected if mobility and freedom are lost.
- All wages and benefits lost at work while the patient is unable to perform job duties.
- Travel costs accumulated to attend doctor visits while immobile and unable to drive.
- Wrongful death benefits. Support for families after a loved one has died from injuries suffered in a slip-and-fall accident.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a Delano slip-and-fall attorney after falling at Walmart?
If you suffer a serious slip-and-fall injury, you could earn much more by trusting your personal injury case to a skilled lawyer. Walmart also had corporate lawyers that work to limit what victims receive. You could require a lawyer to protect your case.
How long do I have to file an injury claim after an accident at Walmart?
California allows victims to wait up to two years after an injury to file a claim and seek compensation. You shouldn’t wait months or years to act. You’ll want to make sure your lawyer can secure recent evidence and keep track of witnesses.
What if I can’t afford to pay a Delano slip-and-fall lawyer?
You can still secure the help of a Maison Law attorney. You won’t need any upfront money to hire us. We don’t get paid unless we win your case for you. Then our fee comes out of the Walmart settlement check you receive.
Contact a Delano Walmart Slip-and-Fall Lawyer
After a slip-and-fall accident involving a serious injury at a store like Walmart, take action to hold at-fault corporate chains fully responsible. Victims should be left free to focus on healing and not left to face anxiety over how their hospital bills will get paid. A Delano Walmart slip-and-fall lawyer can handle the frustrating negotiations with insurance companies while victims are allowed to focus on healing.
Contact attorney Martin Gasparian, the founder of Maison Law, for a free consultation and case evaluation. Mr. Gasparian gives injured victims and their families in Kern County a powerful voice when confronting insurance companies and corporate lawyers to demand support.
