How a Slip and Fall Lawyer Can Help After an Accident at Kroger

When you shop at a grocery store such as Kroger, you have a few expectations of the shopping experience before you step foot in the store. Firstly, you expect to shop in a clean store, from immaculate bathrooms to finely polished floors. Second, you expect the store to be fully stocked with your favorite food and beverage products. Third, you expect to leave the store in the same good health that you had when you entered the store. The third expectation is a given because, under the duty of care doctrine, grocery stores like Kroger are responsible for ensuring your safety during the entire shopping experience.

However, the third expectation can be significantly disrupted because of a slip and fall incident. Despite careful planning, slip and accidents happen at grocery stores operating throughout the United States. A carton of milk falls from a grocery cart and lands hard on the floor in aisle three, spilling all of its contents within a few seconds. In aisle eight, a customer inadvertently drops a six-pack of beer that explodes upon landing on the floor. At the back of the store, condensation from the air conditioning system has found its way to the ground.

All of this can happen at the same time.

According to a study released by the National Floor Safety Institute (NFSI), slip and fall incidents send more than one million people to emergency rooms each year in the United States. Injuries resulting from a slip and fall can be as mild as a few minor bruises to as severe as life-threatening brain trauma. If you slipped and fell at Kroger, you should contact a Kroger slip and fall lawyer to determine whether you have a strong enough case to file a civil lawsuit seeking monetary damages.

As one of the most common types of personal injury cases, a slip and fall can irrevocably change your life. At Morgan and Morgan, our team of personal injury attorneys helps clients recover from the financial losses caused by a Kroger slip and fall accident. Since 1988, Morgan and Morgan has recovered more than $14 billion in monetary damages for our clients, with some of the money recovered coming from favorable settlements and civil lawsuit awards. The Kroger slip and fall lawyer assigned to your case conducts an extensive investigation to determine whether Kroger should assume legal liability for causing you harm.

Schedule a free case evaluation with a Kroger slip and fall lawyer from Morgan and Morgan to determine how to proceed with your case.

What Are the Most Common Injuries Resulting From a Kroger Slip and Fall?

The element of surprise is one of the main reasons why a slip and fall accident can turn into a serious health scare. With little time to brace for a hard landing, just a fall from a couple of feet can cause a devastating injury that requires a lifetime's worth of physical therapy.

Let’s review three of the most common types of injuries that result from a slip and fall at a grocery store like Kroger.

Broken Bones

One instinct immediately kicks in when we start to slip and fall: We try to find a way to brace ourselves from the hard impact on the floor or ground. How do we typically try to brace ourselves to absorb the hard impact of a slip and fall? The answer is to reflexively throw out one or both arms to prevent the rest of the body from making hard contact with the ground or floor. With one or both arms straightened to absorb the tremendous impact, we leave ourselves vulnerable to sustaining a fractured bone.

The wrist is the most common body part that breaks during a slip and fall incident. However, using an arm to brace for a slip and fall also can produce a separated shoulder and/or a dislocated elbow.

Torn Knee/Ankle Ligaments

Slip and fall accidents can cause the body to twist during the descent to the floor or ground. This means the knees and ankles become susceptible to an unnatural motion that places pressure on the ligaments that keep both joints operating flawlessly. The considerable pressure placed on the knees and ankles during a slip and fall might lead to strained or even torn ligaments. It can take a patient several months to recover fully from damaged knee and/or ankle ligaments, which means the injury forces a victim out of work for a lengthy period.

Brain Trauma

Brain trauma ranges from a mild concussion to a life-threatening coma. Your head can hit one or more objects, such as the floor or the side of a beverage station. Although the distance to the floor is short, the speed of the fall generates a powerful impact that jostles the nerves that send signals from the brain to the rest of the body. Sustaining a head injury as a result of a slip and fall can produce a permanent disability.

How Should I Handle a Slip and Fall at Kroger?

As with every other type of personal injury incident, the steps that you take after slipping and falling at Kroger play a large role in determining whether you qualify for monetary damages. Some of the steps should unfold before you meet with a Korger slip and fall lawyer, while the remaining steps take place after you complete a free case evaluation.

Get Treated for Your Injuries

The severity of your injury or injuries determines whether seeking medical care is the first step or a step completed later during the slip and fall claim process. Serious injuries, such as brain trauma and spinal cord damage, require emergency care that prevents you from completing many of the remaining steps yourself. If you feel healthy enough to complete the remaining steps, you should eventually seek medical attention to generate a paper trail that shows you sustained one or more injuries because of a slip and fall incident at Kroger.
You cannot expect to receive compensation for any injuries if you do not present evidence of your healthcare expenses.

Inform Management

Chances are good that Kroger management receives the notification of your slip and fall incident shortly after you fall. Whether you, a customer, or an employee report the accident is irrelevant. All that matters is that the management team finds out about the slip and fall incident. A member of management must complete an incident report that it sends to its insurance company when the time comes to process a claim. The incident report explains in detail what happened before, during, and after the slip and fall incident.

Contact a Kroger Slip and Fall Lawyer

Getting compensated for a slip and fall accident at Kroger requires the legal support of an experienced personal injury attorney. Kroger’s insurance company might deny a valid claim for compensation. Filing a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages involves completing several steps that a state-licensed personal injury lawyer should handle. Hiring a Kroger slip and fall lawyer from Morgan and Morgan lets Kroger’s legal team and insurance company know that you are serious about receiving compensation for your injury or injuries.

Gather and Organize Physical Evidence

If you remain at the scene of a slip and fall incident, collect evidence by starting with capturing images of the accident scene. Get the contact information from witnesses that your Kroger slip and fall lawyer interviews. Even if you have to leave the scene of the slip and fall accident to receive medical care, your personal injury attorney from Morgan and Morgan obtains video footage shot by security cameras to determine whether Kroger violated the duty of care doctrine by committing one or more acts of negligence.

How Much Time Do I Have to File a Slip and Fall Lawsuit?

Every type of personal injury lawsuit requires the plaintiff to file a claim before the expiration of the statute of limitations. Each state has established a deadline for filing a personal injury lawsuit. The typical deadline set by state law ranges from two to four years, although some states allow as many as six years and as few as one year to initiate legal action. For a vast majority of slip and fall cases, the statute of limitations for filing a civil lawsuit starts on the day of the accident.

Even if you live in a state that has imposed a one-year deadline for filing a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages, you should act with a sense of urgency for several reasons. The most important reason is you need the money granted by a legal decision to take care of rapidly rising medical bills. Diagnostic tests, treatment programs, and physical therapy sessions can quickly push the financial losses associated with a slip and fall incident into tens of thousands of dollars. Second, your Kroger slip and fall attorney wants to interview witnesses as close to the date of the accident as possible. Witness accounts of personal injury incidents typically are more accurate when they are given shortly after an accident.

If you do not file a personal injury lawsuit before the deadline established by your state, the court clerk processing your lawsuit removes it from the judicial docket.

How Does a Kroger Slip and Fall Lawyer Provide Legal Support?

A Kroger slip and fall lawyer provides legal support in several ways.

Interacts With Kroger’s Insurance Company

Kroger purchases insurance to address the financial consequences of a customer slipping and falling at one of its stores. However, purchasing insurance and paying out claims are two separate issues. Hiring a Kroger slip and fall lawyer from Morgan and Morgan improves your chances of getting approved for an insurance claim. By acting as an intermediary between you and Kroger’s insurance company, your attorney gives you more time to handle other aspects of your case.

Proves Negligence

You cannot win a civil lawsuit unless your Kroger slip and fall lawyer proves Kroger committed one or more acts of negligence. Your attorney must show Kroger owed you a duty of care to ensure a safe shopping environment. Then, your Kroger slip and fall lawyer presents overwhelming persuasive physical evidence that Korger breached the duty of care doctrine. Proving negligence also involves demonstrating the slip and fall incident caused your injuries that resulted in financial losses.

Negotiate a Settlement

A majority of personal injury cases never see the light inside a courtroom. Instead, the attorney you work with from Morgan and Morgan tries to negotiate a settlement. Negotiations start with your legal counsel submitting an offer, which Kroger’s attorney can either accept, reject, or send back with a counteroffer. A series of counteroffers can ensue until both parties agree to a settlement or decide to move forward with the litigation process.

To learn more about receiving compensation for your injuries, schedule a free case evaluation today with a Kroger slip and fall lawyer.