One could say quite honestly that America has become a country of litigation. You burn your tongue on a cup of java and sue the store from whom your purchased it. Your daughter leaves home at 18 because she doesn't like your house rules and sues you for support. You fall at work and sue your employer for the wet floor or onion peel on which you slipped.
We are a country of sue-happy people. On many occasions it is necessary – if your accident is legitimate and if the company that caused your accident is truly as fault. Then there are those occasions where the suit is frivolous and ridiculous. If you drink coffee, then you know it's going to be hot. And why are we, as parents, having our rights to establish our own rules in our own homes, taken away from us by our own children?
Are store keyholders well trained?
I worked in the supermarket industry for 21 years – most of that time as a keyholder in the store. This required me to know exactly what to do when a customer or employee got injured. It could be anything from a knife slipping in the Deli Department and cutting an employee's finger to a customer who slips on a wet floor. Management was always well trained on what to say and do. And always – the injured person was to be treated with respect, dignity and their safety in mind.
We were taught how to write out an injury report, who to call within the company to report it and, of course, emergency services if needed.
So, it was with great disappointment when I learned that my mother-in-law had fallen at a Walmart in southern Maine in July of 2012 and been treated about as poorly as a person can be by store management.
My mother-in-law was 74 at the time, and was pushing a shopping cart through the aisles, when a wheel locked up on the cart, she stumbled – grabbing onto the cart to keep from falling and the cart keeled over on her. She was knocked to the ground with the cart landing on top of one of her shins.
She received a bad gash in her leg. Moreover, she lay there on the floor while customers and employees walked by ignoring her pleas for help. Imagine a 74-year-old, 5' tall grandmother lying on the floor in a crowded store with a shopping cart laying on top of her pleading for assistance and people just walk on by her.
Eventually her pleas for help landed on a woman with a baby. That woman sought help and got the cart off my mother-in-law and management was called to handle the incident.
Management, in my opinion, dropped the ball. While they took a report, they immediately treated my mother-in-law like she had done something wrong. She was taken to the front of the store and made to fill out the report before help would be called. My mother-in-law, not wanting an ambulance, instead phoned one of her sons to come and get her and take her to the hospital.
In the end, she had a very bad wound in which she now has permanent damage. The shin is so sensitive that she cannot even put clothing over that particular spot without discomfort and pain.
Can one attorney fight corporate America?
An attorney was hired to handle the case. He immediately notified Walmart to flag the shopping cart and not put it back into the cart population – but they did so anyway – making the cart impossible to identify for litigation.
It's been three years since the attorney took on this case – not a huge lawsuit by any means – he merely seeks to compensate my mother in-law for the hospital and doctor's bills she incurred, the permanent damage she now has and the negligence of those responsible at that Walmart store.
Meanwhile, big old corporate Walmart refuses to even return phone calls. While they assigned one of their own attorneys to handle this case, she corresponded with my mother-in-law's attorney a few times and now will not reply to voicemails or e-mails. Professional courtesy is not even followed.
It seems the industry standard of "make them wait and hope they'll go away" is still going strong in corporate America. While stores such as Walmart continue to grow and infiltrate every corner of the U.S.A., they stuff their pockets with every dollar they can – pay low wages to their employees, good training a thing of the past, just as the maintenance of store, carts and floors.
Start noticing your local Walmart. When you drive into the parking lot, how many shopping carts are out there? How many are corralled and how many are loose? How dirty is the store, the floor, the restrooms? Are employees working in the aisles friendly? Are they blocking the store aisles with their U-boats and carts? Is there ever anyone around to help you? Is there ever enough help for assistance in service departments?
When I worked in the grocery industry, our company standard for shopping carts in the parking lot was no more than 20. Plus, no clerk grabbing carts could ever push more than five – as a policy. This all served to keep the amount of vehicular damage done from carts to a minimum.
Shopping cart cleanliness and maintenance was a top priority.
Apparently, this is not the standard at the big box stores we have today.
Litigation is apparently a waste of time
The amount of money requested to compensate my mother-in-law is like one grain of sand in a large bucket full of billions of dollars. The company's attorneys are content to sit happily in their offices playing the waiting game – hoping my mother-in-law will die before they have to respond to her attorney – thus resolving their problem once and for all.
I'm guessing none of them ever had mothers, grandmothers, sisters or daughters or maybe they would feel a little compassion and do what is right. They certainly do not have a conscience.
While this goes on day after day, my mother-in-law's leg is now disfigured and pains her daily. She is our mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, and in-law – someone we love and care about ... not an object meant to be ignored, stepped on or treated like an annoyance.
The irony here? She continues to shop at that Walmart. It's her favorite store and she's shopped there for many years. The company is still taking her money with great ease, while denying their responsibility for the injury she received in the very same store.
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