What Should You Do If You Get Injured Because of the Negligence of a Walmart Employee?

Imagine you are shopping at Walmart. While shopping, you slip and fall because there was a spill that wasn’t cleaned up. Or maybe a heavy item falls on you from a shelf that wasn’t stocked properly. What should you do in this kind of situation?

Is Walmart Responsible?

Before taking any action, you need to establish if your injury is actually Walmart’s fault. This means proving there was negligence – when a Walmart employee fails to maintain safety in the store reasonably.

Here are some examples of negligence that could cause customer injury:

• Not cleaning up spills
• Allowing trip hazards like merchandise in walkways
• Unsafe stacking of items on shelves
• Not putting up wet floor signs
• Poorly trained employees making preventable mistakes

If the unsafe conditions that led to your accident were preventable and caused by Walmart’s poor safety practices, then they should take responsibility.

Seek Medical Care

After any injury at a store, your health should be the priority. Even if an injury seems minor at first, there could be complications. Getting prompt medical attention can identify any underlying issues and establish official documentation of the incident.

Here are good options for seeking care after an injury at Walmart:

• Emergency room: For major injuries, go straight to the nearest ER. This creates medical records, and they can refer you for follow-up care.
• Urgent care clinic: For less serious injuries, a clinic is quicker and costs less than an ER. They can evaluate injuries, take X-rays, give medication, etc.
• Doctor’s office: Your regular doctor likely knows your medical history the best. See them if the injury isn’t an emergency but still needs professional care.

Be sure to explain your injury was caused by an accident at Walmart and ask for copies of all medical records. This documentation will be crucial evidence later if you make an injury claim.

Report What Happened

After getting medical care, it’s vital to report your injury incident to Walmart right away directly. This creates an official record that will strengthen your case.

Here are the steps you should take:

• Talk to a manager – Notify the manager on duty about your injury and how it happened due to unsafe conditions or employee actions. Be specific on the details. Ask them to make an official incident report.
• Call 1-800-Walmart – Even if you talked to a manager, also call Walmart’s customer service hotline to report the incident again. Explain what led to your injury and ask for a reference number for your call.
• Follow up in writing – Send a letter to the store manager summarizing your injury event, confirming you reported it to staff, and requesting they preserve video footage or other evidence. Send this letter by certified mail so there’s proof they received it.

Properly reporting the incident is what starts the official claims process with Walmart. This gives them a chance to investigate what happened, take responsibility, and consider offering you fair compensation for your injuries.

Gather Evidence

In addition to medical records, collecting evidence is how you build a strong case to show Walmart’s responsibility for your damages. This evidence also supports the negotiation of a larger settlement.

Types of evidence that help prove your injury claim:

• Photos: Take lots of photos documenting the unsafe conditions that caused your accident, like liquid spills or cluttered aisles. Also, photograph any visible injuries.
• Video footage: Request security camera footage that may have captured your fall or accident at the store. This visual record is incredibly valuable.
• Receipts: Keep all receipts for medical expenses, prescriptions, medical equipment, transportation for care visits, etc. These show monetary costs related to the injury.
• Medical records: Request full reports, test results, doctor’s diagnoses, therapy referrals, and any other files. These confirm the extent of your physical injury.
• Eyewitnesses: Get names and contact info for any Walmart employees or other shoppers who saw your accident occur. Their accounts help support what happened.

Building a thorough evidence file makes negotiating a fair settlement more likely.

Walmart will also conduct its investigation, so the more proof on your side, the better.

Hire a Personal Injury Lawyer

Dealing directly with Walmart’s claims department as an individual can be challenging. That’s why hiring an experienced personal injury lawyer is highly recommended.

An attorney who specializes in premises liability cases against retailers understands exactly how to build a convincing case with evidence and maximize settlement offers. They deal with similar cases all the time and are thus best suited to hold Walmart employees accountable for negligence.

Benefits of having a qualified lawyer handle your injury claim:

• Better legal knowledge – They know personal injury laws and what legal violations by Walmart you can pursue compensation for.
• Negotiation skills – Lawyers with proven settlement records can often negotiate much larger payouts, even without going to court. Their demands carry more weight.
• Objectivity – Emotions can complicate negotiations. A lawyer only focuses on legal strategy and reasonable settlements based on case evidence.
• Resources – Law firms have the staff, expertise, and financial resources to investigate what happened and demonstrate Walmart’s liability fully.

Many personal injury lawyers work on contingency fees, meaning you don’t pay anything upfront. They take a percentage of your final settlement amount as payment. Just be sure to sign an agreement outlining fee terms.

Negotiate a Settlement

Once you have reporting, evidence collection, and a lawyer in place, the process moves toward seeking a claim settlement with Walmart. There are a few steps:

• Send demand letter – Your lawyer formally sends a letter to Walmart’s legal team demanding compensation for your damages. This cites evidence of negligence and notes potential legal action if settlement demands aren’t met.
• Walmart investigates the claim – Walmart will open a claim file and assign an adjuster to investigate your allegations more closely. They determine if accepting fault and settling is the wisest option over going to court.
• Settlement negotiation – Your lawyer negotiates back and forth with Walmart representatives to agree on a settlement amount. This is based on medical costs, emotional distress, lost wages from injury, and other liability damages you incurred.
• Settlement agreement – Once a specific dollar amount is agreed to, you sign a legal release agreeing not to pursue further compensation in exchange for Walmart paying the negotiated claim settlement.

The settlement process involves strategic posturing by both sides through letters, calls, and possibly mediation sessions. An experienced lawyer maximizes leverage for the largest payout within reason.

Out-of-court legal settlements also avoid the extended time commitments and uncertainty of taking Walmart to court over an injury trial. Quick resolution is usually preferable for everyone.

Conclusion

Getting injured in a public place due to unsafe conditions can be extremely stressful. Seeking fair compensation for damages that weren’t your fault is often a long process. But understanding these steps helps you navigate it in an informed way.

Having Walmart acknowledge how an employee’s negligence directly led to your injury is important. Collecting thorough evidence and hiring an attorney experienced with major retailer injury claims sets you up for the best outcome. Ideally, this leads to a reasonable settlement that helps cover the medical, emotional, and financial difficulties the incident caused.

While no process can erase the hardship of suffering an avoidable injury due to poor safety standards, holding Walmart accountable improves the chances the same incident doesn’t happen to someone else. Handled carefully and legally, even hypothetical situations like this example can lead to fair restitution.