Slipping on a banana peel is a famous and hilarious comedy routine. It endured for years and even made it to TV comedy shows in the early years. There is usually a side reference to the injury suffered by the unsuspecting victim. Sometimes, you might even see a vignette in old television reruns about the consumer trying to get compensation for damages. We enjoy laughing at this vaudeville standard. If you are injured while shopping or eating a retail location, it is not a laughing matter! You will need a personal injury attorney right away.
People rarely slip on banana peels these days. But thousands of people are injured in grocery stores, home improvement centers and even restaurants. Most of these injuries are due to negligence. The store or restaurant owner has not taken proper precautions to protect visitors to his or her premises from injury. In these cases, you must not give up your rights to recover your losses.
An understaffed retail location may contain hidden dangers that result in injuries to you. Employees who are responsible for maintaining the cleanliness of a store's premises may need to mop the floors or remove spills while customers are present. If the store is short-staffed, the delay between the time the spill happens and the time it is cleaned up may be just enough time for an unwitting customer to slip on that "banana peel."
If you suffer an injury, the storeowner should be held responsible for this lapse in responsibility. Restaurants that cause injuries to consumers have been found negligent in their business operations. One of the most famous examples of restaurant negligence is related to the cardboard sleeve that accompanies your morning coffee at nearly every take-out restaurant in the country. A customer at a McDonalds fast food restaurant was severely burned by the coffee that she ordered. The temperature of the coffee was so high that she suffered personal injury with third degree burns that required hospitalization. A jury agreed that the business was responsible for that customer's injuries.