Wife slightly injured at a retail store. They blew her off.

[Zeke]

My wife was recently shopping at Ross Stores for some throw rugs. She was led by a salesperson to a rack of these runners and other sizes of inexpensive Oriental rugs. She told the salesperson she would browse and the salesperson agreed saying that if she needed help, to call her over.

When placing a rug back on the rack, she received a deep gash from the metal part of the rack right between the middle finger and ring finger large knuckle. Right in the valley between those knuckles.

She was bleeding so badly, she had to hold her other hand under the right hand that had been cut so as to not drop blood on the floor and/or other store merchandise.

She walked over to the sales counter and asked for some aid. I guess they gave her some paper towels or something, I don't know. All I know is she went straight to the local doc in the box (emergicare) to see about a stitch.

The doctor told her that it was a difficult place to stitch being a low spot and that some nerve damage could occur if he did so. He recommended a type of butterfly bandage and keeping her hand vitually immobile for the healing period.

It opened up by the next day and she went back to have the doctor on duty have another go at closing the wound. After 4 weeks, the wound is healed, but the pain is still there and she has a "tight hand" when she closes her hand to grab something.

Meanwhile, she filed a claim for her expenses, basically her out of pocket for the deductible. We received a letter from a firm that handles claims for Ross Stores. Here is the text:

"Dear Mrs. Bxxxxxx:

We have carefully examined the circumstances surrounding this incident and have enough information to make a decision regarding your claim.

Based on the completed investigation into this matter, it is our position that Ross Stores was not negligent to your incident. While the incident is very unfortunate, we have reached this conclusion based on your statement, the statement of the store manager, and a witness. Ross did not have actual or constructive notice of any hazard. In addition, sufficient precautions were effectuated.

Therefore, we have determined that Ross Stores is not liable for your injuries and must regretfully deny the claim.

If you have any questions regarding this denial, please contact the undersigned."

I thought she was being fair only asking for her out of pocket ($50) and not trying to blow the thing out of proportion into a "slip and fall" lawsuit.

I have just come into this issue and to tell you the truth, I was pissed at their letter and have considered moving ahead with the claim in court.

Comments?

(Edited for punctuation)

[Joeaksa]

Take it to court, and hope you documented everything possible. They can cover the costs and are being difficult in not doing so.

JoeA

[M.D. Holloway]

Zeke - time is not on your side here. Unless you have pics, others that fell victm, or the rack that did the damage your chances are slim to none of getting anything. Even slip-n-fall cases are subject to scrutiny nowadays. There maybe survalinece tapes that would indicate an improper display was in use but it is still a far cry. Chances are the rack has been replaced or fixed.

On a separate note - had a similar cut between my thumb and index finger on my left hand, shouldve got stitches but didn't. Packed it with antibacterial cream and put a golf ball wrapped in gauze then wrapped it up. The gap scabbed over with enough play in th skin so it wasn't tight. Darn thing kept opening up every week for a month. I'd take a busted nose over that rip! I know what she is going through.

[dd74]

FWIW, I thought most rug stores pull the rugs back for the customer. The customer simply observes and chooses the rug they like. Why is this? Maybe customer care. Maybe a safety issue.

At least this is how they do it at ABC in Midtown Manhattan.

[Don 944 LA]

seems that businesses that take that stand need to be shown in court how they should respond and maybe after a few times they will get it right .

[RANDY P]

If it's covered by her healthcare and they learn the circumstances behind her injury certainly they'll be contacting ROSS for you. They'll get the money back..

rjp

[RoninLB]

you may have gotten a form letter?

The squeaky wheel gets lubed. As long as she doesn't have a history of suing it's probably worth $5k.. although the court routine is probably different in NY. In NY a small claims against a corp means they need lawyer rep in court. They don't want to spend lawyer $ at $400/hr

[K. Roman]

I've had a framed picture (Levi's Ad) fall on my head at Macy's about 10 years ago. I backed up into my friend who also fell and injured himself. We were asked to sign an agreement for a release of liability and instead decided to go straight to the hospital.
I was around 23 years old at the time and thought that the agreement was so insensitive that I'd take it as far as I could go. My friend and I decided we'd take them to court for our doctor bills which we're around 500 dollars a piece. We got that and a about a grand more just because their insurance people didn't want to go to court.

[FastDave]

I consider myself a compassionate person and I feel for your wife.

That being said, we've ALL asked for this ourselves. By demading lower prices on everything we buy we have told the retailers we would rather wait on ourselves to get the lower prices than receive the customer service once provided.

Customers were never killed by forklifts until the "box stores" came to town!

[Zeke]

Dave, I fail to see the point you are making. Do you know what a Ross Store is? It's not a Costco or Sams, it's a dept store with mid level merchandise as compared to a Macys or Robinsons-May with high end merch.

Ross doesn't have a Home Depot rack system.

But, if you are getting philosophical here about Americans and what we buy, I'm game for that. But let't do that on another thread, OK? In fact, I have a lot to say on that.

Back to this topic, I am going to proceed, make no mistake. And my wife wants to, as well. We are doing this toghether as a team. She said I ought to run this by "that BBS you spend so much time on."

[mikester]

Sorry about what happened Zeke - it's a shame and the customer services doesn't sound too great either.

A while back Gwen took a dive in a the Bridge up in LA because there was some liquid on the floor that we didn't see (it was clear and the lighting in the theater wasn't great of course).

At first not a single person who worked there came to help her out. So...I went after them. I found the nearest employee and told him of the situation and he just didn't care. So...when he didnt' care I asked him to get me a manager - Now. I mean he didn't even care enough to want to clean up the mess so no one else slipped on it. So when we found a manager they were apologetic and attempted to pacify us with some free tickets. Gwen wasn't feeling too bad but I didn't want to rule anything out. She doesn't have the best back and this kind of thing can really mess it up more. So; we got our money back for the movie we were going to see - they gave use some free tickets and took our information down. I told them that there was no way to tell how injured she was due to the nature of it. So it would be in their best interests to keep up with this and to check on her in a few days. She went to the chiro and all in all she seemed okay so we didn't go after them for anything. The fact is though their employees reacted like crap and we really could have held them much more accountable if we weren't better people.

You have a good head on your shoulders there and I'm sure you're doing the right thing. People in general just don't seem to have any compassion these days.

[on-ramp]

woman made millions from injuries sustained by spilling hot Mcdonalds coffee on herself... go to court. sue those bastards for negligence.

[cowtown]

This isn't directly related to retail: with binding arbitration, settling a labor greivance where I work costs $20,000 + $1,500 per day of arbitration, as a rule of thumb. If we can settle for less, we settle. This is a business decision and is regardless of fault, unless we're really trying to prove a point.

I agree with the poster who said you probably got a form letter. They can settle 90% of these incidents by denying liability at the outset. If you want to be part of the 10% that just blows by their first move, you probably could get something. Whether it's worth the time and aggravation is another decision entirely.

[markjenn]

I think you're at the cusp where you either go big or you go home. The only way you can get a lawyer to take this thing at reasonable cost is if you go for a fairly large award involving pain and suffering. The overhead of pressing this would simply not be worth it to get reimbursed for anything less than say $10K or so. So if you feel your case is strong and you want to go into "I'm going to see if I can make some serious money on this", then I'd go ahead. Otherwise, I'd walk.

Is your case strong? Not enough info.

If your wife is doing fine and you have other things to worry about, I'd advise you to move on. Life's short and most of us have better things to do with it than spend time with lawyers, give depositions, and spend time in court.

BTW, their seeming unreasonable attitude toward covering the deductable probably has nothing to do with the amount - they simply have a policy not to pay small amounts like this. If they did, they'd probably be admitting some fault and exposing themselves for serious lawsuits. We're a long, long ways from the simpler times when a big corporation would say, "We're sorry, let us cover your med expenses and here's a $500 gift certificate for your trouble." The lawyers and the legal system, in trying to harvest the system for their own livelihood, have robbed us of these days.

Good luck,

- Mark

[island911]

Your wife can be safe of tragic places such as Ross, if she re-applies . .. and then gets two more Purple-Hearts.


(sorry Zeke .. .couldn't resist)

[lendaddy]

Zeke, I say let it go. Having been hit by a drunk driver while inside (that's right inside) a party store and going through 4 years of BS, I would just let it go. Not worth it.

Also, the store has no option but to deny your your resonable request. The instant they give you a dime they admit liability and hence open themselves up to being sued for "future related ailments". They really couldn't help you if they wanted to.

It's the sad state of affairs our litigous society has created.

[Moses]

Sorry about the injury, but come on. Does somebody always have to pay when we hurt ourselves?

Racks are made of steel. Steel is stronger than skin. Accidents happen. If she got hurt at home in your garage would she sue you and place a claim with homeowners insurance? I can see the day coming when you won't be allowed to physically enter a store without signing a waiver or an arbitration agreement. Crap like this just gets us there quicker.

Life goes on, ***** happens. Her hand will heal and she'll be fine.

Let it go, man.

[K. Roman]

Sue em. It's a good experience to learn something.

[azasadny]

About 8 years ago, I cut my shin on a display rack in a downtown Detroit drugstore. I went to the ER, got 6 stitches and took my suit to the cleaners to get the blood out of it and get the rip in the fabric repaired. The next day, the store owner called and offered me $5000 if I would agree not to sue. I refused the money and told them I just wanted them to fix the display rack so nobody else would get hurt. It's amazing that the store owner (and my HR rep) asumed that I would take the $. Sad commentary on our litigious society...

[Moses]

Originally posted by azasadny
About 8 years ago, I cut my shin on a display rack in a downtown Detroit drugstore. I went to the ER, got 6 stitches and took my suit to the cleaners to get the blood out of it and get the rip in the fabric repaired. The next day, the store owner called and offered me $5000 if I would agree not to sue. I refused the money and told them I just wanted them to fix the display rack so nobody else would get hurt. It's amazing that the store owner (and my HR rep) asumed that I would take the $. Sad commentary on our litigious society...

Good for you. If the display rack was faulty, it seems reasonable to let them pay for the suit. Glad you didn't feel the need to "lawyer up".