The manager of a store has a duty to protect you from dangerous spills and objects on the floor. Find out more in this video.
Video Transcript
Hello this is Darrell Castle. I’m an attorney licensed to practice law in the state of Tennessee and on this video, I’m talking about accidents that happen in places of business like stores and restaurants. Accidents that are typically referred to as slip & fall accidents, or fall down accidents.
What I mean by that is you go into a store to shop or a restaurant to eat and you slip on something that might be called unsafe like a wet floor or food left on the floor. You fall and injure yourself. What is the result?
Well the owner of that business owes you a duty because your status before the law, your legal status, is called business invitee. That means you have been invited there by that business for a commercial purpose. The owner of that business hopes to make a profit from your visit to sell you food or the other kinds of things that he sells.
He owes you a duty. He owes you a duty to keep his premises safe from unsafe conditions. He owes you a duty to inspect and make sure there are no unsafe conditions and if he finds one – he finds a wet floor or something like that – that can’t be cleaned up immediately, he owes you a duty to warn you. In other words, he has to put a sign there. That’s why you see signs in restaurants and in stores that say “wet floor” and that type of thing.
Now the other thing that the business owner has to do is that he has to protect you from actions by his own employees and so forth to make sure they don’t do something that creates an unsafe condition.
But let’s say a customer does it. Say your walking through the grocery store and a customer right in front of you drops a banana on the floor. You don’t see it, you step on it, you slip and fall and you break your hip or your ankle, or your shoulder or something like that. Well what chance did that business owner have to clean that up?
Not very much, but let’s say that same banana laid there on the floor for an hour before you came and stepped on it. Well then that’s probably something that he had a duty to clean up, so it works kind of like that.
Just remember that when you see the sign that says “wet floor” that person is trying to warn you of an unsafe condition, obviously. so, be careful out there, folks.
If you’ve been injured in a slip and fall accident, call us today at (901) 327-1212 or fill out the “Get in Touch” form below.