Maison Law represents slip-and-fall victims hurt at giant stores like IKEA. We help victims hold corporate chains fully accountable when their unsafe aisles cause customers to get hurt. To find out what you should be demanding from IKEA after suffering an injury on its property, contact a skilled California lawyer and schedule a free consultation. It’s a no-risk way to determine what your injury is worth and how to hold a negligent corporation fully responsible.
Do I Need a Lawyer After Suffering an Injury at a California IKEA?
If you take a fall inside or outside an IKEA and you suffer a serious injury, you may need a lawyer’s help to make sure IKEA accepts responsibility and provides adequate financial help. A serious injury can include things like a wrist fracture, or any broken bone, head trauma, and deep cuts.
When IKEA’s negligence contributes to injuries, it should move immediately to help victims pay for recovery. Unfortunately, an international corporation like IKEA can afford a team of corporate lawyers who will, instead, be working to help the business avoid taking the blame.
Your California slip-and-fall lawyer is your safeguard when IKEA tries to fault you for what happened. Your lawyer also protects your interests when IKEA’s insurance provider tries to get you to sign off on a “lowball” settlement offer that doesn’t even cover your first night in the hospital. Your Maison Law attorney fully investigates your case and uses the evidence to force IKEA to provide complete support to you as you heal.
IKEA Accident Dangers
IKEA is a popular home goods and furniture store that’s taken over the busiest shopping areas in California. There are plenty of hard-to-miss big box locations in the Bay Area and around Los Angeles. In fact, what may be the biggest IKEA in the U.S. opened in Burbank several years ago.
People love the prices and the modern style IKEA specializes in. But that popularity usually means that their locations are crowded from the moment their doors open until they close for the day. Even with huge aisles, customers are often elbow to elbow.
All that foot traffic can lead to obstacles ending up on the shiny floors and in the parking lots. When IKEA’s owners and operators don’t monitor for these dangers and remove them in a reasonable amount of time, the corporate owners can be held responsible when someone gets hurt.
When we walk into that big blue and yellow building, we may be focused on a shopping list, but these and other risks might bring a painful end to our shopping trips:
- Aisle Dangers – Customers can leave puddles around any corner that take even the most sturdy person down to the ground. They can move furniture displays around that catch the foot for a trip and fall. Shoppers can drop candy or break glass jars creating more hazards that might send you into a fall. Employees attempting to restock merchandise can leave small boxes on the floor that cause a trip-and-fall accident.
- Cafeteria Dangers – Everyone loves IKEA’s meatballs, but when customers, especially children, get food in their hands, it can often end up on the floor causing a slipping hazard. Shoppers taking drinks with them can spill ice and leave puddles. It might sit out until someone comes along and falls backward to land on a hip and suffer a fracture.
- Bathroom Hazards – Water and soap on the floor can make it almost impossible for people to venture across safely. Taking a fall around a stall or a sink might cause a victim to suffer a powerful blow to the head.
- Overhead Items – You must watch out for slip and fall dangers in IKEA, but you’ll also have to beware of things falling on you. Those maze-like aisles feature some boxes and merchandise overhead on shelves. A previous customer may have left a product in an unstable position, leaving it ready to fall on your head. A heavy product or box can cause a dangerous Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) causing seizures and a loss of memory for victims.
- Parking Lot Hazards – IKEA is liable for customer safety in their giant parking lots. They must patch potholes and broken sidewalks outside before someone trips and lands on a knee or their face. Landscaping issues can cause falls. Victims can lose teeth and suffer broken noses. They may even suffer a permanent scar. When customers are tracking in rainwater, it’s also up to employees to keep the entrances mopped up and “wet floor” signs out.
- Escalator and Stairwell Hazards – IKEA must keep escalators and stairwells free of hazards to prevent someone from taking several falls and enduring a major injury.
Common IKEA Slip-And-Fall Injuries
You may be surprised at the wide range of serious injuries that shoppers suffer in busy stores each year. Falling forward, backward, or sideways leaves certain parts of your body vulnerable, including your head in some cases.
Store slip-and-fall accidents usually involve tumbling backward after the victims’ shoes have slid out from under them. These are just a few of the slip-and-fall injuries California emergency room doctors treat:
- Traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and head injuries – A strike to the head on the floor or on an IKEA shelf may cause confusion, a loss of physical control, and severe concussions. A skull could also fracture and cause brain bleeding.
- Damage to the back and vertebrae.
- Dislocations and broken bones. Damage to joints like a hip fracture can be difficult to heal from and cause other health issues during recovery.
Trip-and-fall mishaps can send a victim forward. These are a few of the most common types of injuries resulting from a trip:
- Hand, wrist, and finger injuries as victims attempt to catch their fall.
- Facial Injuries. Jawbone, cheekbone, and nose fractures.
- Dental impacts can loosen teeth or cause them to fall out.
- Knee Injuries. Johns Hopkins Medicine reports that kneecap fractures that result in displaced pieces of the bone can require expensive surgery.
Compensation Available for IKEA Injury Victims
You will need strong evidence to hold IKEA accountable. Your lawyer will be gathering all evidence available, but the best evidence may need to be collected on the scene, right after a fall. If you are left strong enough, try to get photos of the hazard that caused you to get hurt. Get contact information from all witnesses. Allow an IKEA manager to fill out an incident report that can serve as evidence of what happened later.
Once your trip-and-fall lawyer fully investigates what happened and collects the remaining evidence, your lawyer demands compensation for every hardship you and your family have suffered.
These and other factors will all contribute to the size of your IKEA injury settlement check:
- All medical expenses including surgery and physical therapy costs
- The ongoing expenses associated with a permanent disability or long-term injury
- Physical pain and emotional suffering
- Loss of enjoyment of life due to an injury
- Travel costs while attending doctor appointments and seeing specialists
- All income lost while the victim must miss work
- Property Damage
Schedule a Free Consultation with a California IKEA Accident Lawyer
After a slip-and-fall accident involving a serious injury at a store like IKEA, take action to hold at-fault corporate chains fully responsible. Contact the skilled California IKEA Accident Lawyers at Maison Law, for a free consultation and case evaluation. It’s a no-risk way to find out how much you should demand from IKEA and how to hold them fully accountable.
There’s no obligation, but if you feel we can help you earn more for your injury, you don’t have to worry about having the money to hire Maison Law. We don’t get paid unless we win your case for you. Then our attorney’s fee comes out of the money IKEA provides to you and your family.
