Injured at Whole Foods? Here's What You Need to Know

Consumers that shop at grocery stores share many expectations, from finding fresh produce to receiving prompt and friendly customer service at the checkout stations. The last thing you expect during a grocery shopping trip is to slip and fall hard to the floor. Although Whole Foods Markets have a different layout than the layouts you find at less upscale grocery stores, they still retain enough of the same characteristics found at other grocery chain stores. When you shop at a Whole Foods Market store, you can expect to find the usual suspects that cause slip and fall incidents.

According to the National Floor Safety Institute (NFSI), slip and fall incidents send more than one million people to hospital emergency rooms every year. The injuries that result from slip and fall incidents range in severity from minor cuts and bruises to significant brain trauma. Regardless of the severity of your injuries as the result of a slip and fall, you should contact a Whole Foods Market injury lawyer to help you decide whether your case qualifies as a strong enough case to be filed as a personal injury lawsuit.

A Whole Foods Market injury lawyer provides you with several types of legal support. Your attorney conducts a thorough investigation to determine whether negligence played a role in causing you to slip and fall. During a thorough investigation, your Whole Foods Market injury lawyer gathers physical evidence and interviews witnesses to describe what transpired before, during, and after the slip and fall incident. Hiring an experienced personal injury attorney also helps you submit a convincing insurance claim.

For more than 35 years, Morgan and Morgan has represented clients responding to the injuries caused by personal injury incidents. Our personal injury attorneys have recovered more than $20 billion in compensation for our clients, including helping our clients receive compensation for slip and fall incidents. Morgan and Morgan have gone up against the largest grocery store chains and their team of corporate lawyers. We never waver in our commitment to ensure our clients receive the best legal representation.

Schedule a free case evaluation with a Whole Foods Market injury lawyer from Morgan and Morgan to receive the just compensation that you deserve.

What Are the Most Common Serious Injuries Resulting From a Slip and Fall at Whole Foods Market?

Although the height of falling because of a slip is not as far as the height of a fall from a scaffold or the top of a roof, the element of surprise is the primary reason why slip and fall incidents produce injuries that require emergency medical care. After more than three decades of litigating slip and fall cases, our personal injury attorneys have come up with a short list of the most common types of serious slip and fall injuries.

Fractured Bones

The instinct of self-preservation is the motivating influence behind the fractured bones many slip and fall victims sustain. When you start to lose your balance, the instinct of self-preservation triggers an immediate response to take action that helps break the momentum of the fall. We typically throw out one or both arms to cushion the blow of the impact generated by a slip and fall incident. However, bracing for impact using an arm or both arms leaves at least one wrist and arm highly vulnerable to sustaining a fracture.

Slip and fall incidents also cause fractured hips and tibias.

Brain Trauma

Sometimes, the suddenness of a slip and fall does not give us enough time to take quick enough action to brace for the fall. The result can impact other parts of the body, such as the head. Brain trauma can occur because of the impact caused by a stationary object such as a beverage station or hitting the ground head-first without any resistance. Brain trauma can result in a mild concussion, in which the symptoms wane after a few days. However, most brain trauma cases that result from slip and fall incidents can turn life-threatening.

Spinal Cord Damage

Another type of slip and fall injury that results from not having enough time to cushion the blow is landing by the seat of your pants. Discs located in the spinal cord act as cushions that absorb impacts, but strong impacts can dislodge the discs to cause damage to the spinal cord. The symptoms of spinal cord damage can be as mild as a short-term stinging sensation or as severe as temporary or permanent paralysis. Recovering from spinal cord damage might involve years of physical therapy sessions just to learn how to walk short distances.

What Should I Do After a Slip and Fall Incident at Whole Foods Market?

When you meet with a Whole Foods Market injury lawyer from Morgan and Morgan, the attorney sitting across from you wants to know how you reacted after the personal injury incident. You should follow a few steps after a slip and fall to boost the strength of an insurance claim, and if negligence was involved, a personal injury lawsuit that seeks monetary damages.

Receive Medical Care

Medical bills by far represent the highest value of your expenses. The key to receiving just compensation for the costs associated with medical bills is to seek immediate medical care after a personal injury incident such as a slip and fall. Even if you feel healthy enough to remain at the Whole Foods Market store, you should eventually seek medical attention to determine whether you sustained one or more injuries that developed delayed symptoms. Injuries that often develop delayed symptoms include whiplash and brain trauma.

Notify a Manager

This step can be completed at the same time that you receive medical care. Informing a manager concerning the slip and fall incident sets the wheels in motion for the insurance company representing Whole Foods Market to receive your insurance claim. If you must seek immediate medical care, one of the store’s employees should notify store management about the slip and fall incident. After receiving notification of the slip and fall incident that caused your injuries, a representative from Whole Foods Market sends a formal incident report to the company’s insurance company. 

Contact a Whole Foods Market Injury Lawyer

Hiring a Whole Foods Market injury lawyer from Morgan and Morgan ensures store management takes the incident report seriously and the insurance adjuster processes your claim in a timely manner. If you do not receive legal support from a personal injury lawyer, the insurance adjuster might deny a valid claim or approve a claim for a value that is worth much less than the compensation that you deserve. Working with an experienced personal injury attorney also helps you file an evidenced-backed personal injury lawsuit that seeks monetary damages.

How Does My Personal Injury Attorney Prove Negligence?

After sustaining one or more injuries as the result of a slip and fall incident, you have two ways to receive compensation. First, you file an insurance claim, regardless if negligence played a role in causing your harm. The second option to recover financial losses involves filing a personal injury lawsuit, which requires your Whole Foods Market injury lawyer from Morgan and Morgan to prove the presence of the four elements of negligence.

Duty of Care

The first and typically the easiest element of negligence to prove is to establish another party owed you a duty of care to prevent you from sustaining one or more injuries. For example, a surgeon owes a patient the duty of care to perform a surgical procedure that does not harm the patient. Every time you step into a Whole Foods Market, the grocery store chain owes you a duty of care to ensure you shop in a safe and secure environment.

Violation of the Duty of Care Doctrine

The next element of negligence to establish is also the most difficult element to prove. Your Whole Foods Market injury lawyer from Morgan and Morgan must show the judge hearing your case that the grocery store chain violated the duty of care doctrine. This involves collecting enough physical evidence and witness statements to demonstrate Whole Store Foods committed at least one act of negligence that caused you to slip and fall.

For example, failing to place a Wet Floor sign over a slick surface in a timely manner is a common example of a negligent act.

The Incident Caused Your Injuries

Your personal injury attorney must submit medical evidence that verifies the slip and fall incident at Whole Foods Market caused your injuries. The team of lawyers representing Whole Foods Market might claim you sustained your injuries as the result of another event, such as falling off a ladder while working on a home improvement project. Your attorney submits physical evidence in the form of medical records, such as the result of diagnostic tests, as well as detailed descriptions of your treatment programs and physical therapy sessions. 

Your healthcare provider also can support your case by testifying as an expert medical expert.

The Incident Generated Financial Losses

The slip and fall incident at Whole Foods Market must have caused injuries that generated financial losses. This is a relatively easy element of negligence to prove, as your personal injury attorney from Morgan and Morgan submits copies of medical bills and the timekeeping records kept by your employer. You cannot expect to win a favorable legal judgment, especially a favorable legal judgment that includes punitive damages, if you cannot show the judge hearing your case that the injuries sustained as the result of the slip and fall incident produced financial losses.

What Is the Deadline for Filing a Personal Injury Lawsuit?

The amount of time you have to file a personal injury lawsuit depends on the state where you live. The clock starts to tick for a personal injury lawsuit on the day when the incident took place. However, the court might grant you an extension if you sustained one or more injuries that developed delayed symptoms.

If you fail to file a personal injury lawsuit before the expiration of the statute of limitations, you can expect the court clerk processing your case to remove it from the judicial docket.

Contact Morgan and Morgan for Help

A Whole Foods Market injury lawyer from Morgan and Morgan can help you to review the specifics of your case and to fight for your full and fair compensation that you need and deserve to move forward with your life.

Contact us today for a free, no-obligation case evaluation to get started.