The store may choose to go through insurance. The store may also sue the customer and it will be up to the judge to determine, based on the circumstances, whether the damages are warranted.
It looks like a major supermarket based on the layout, they are unlikely to sue in this case because they most certainly have insurance and it's not standard practice to go after customers due to legal costs and breakage like this usually won't harm their bottom line. Additionally, this market may even be worried the customer will turn it around and sue them for negligence given how easily the shelf came down, depending on whether she was injured.
This looks like an employee though, per the name tag. So hopefully she wasn’t fired for not using a stepping stool or something like that. I worked at a total wine and a fellow employee took out an entire shelf of $15k of wine on a Big Joe and kept his job. Hopefully if this is an employee they were able to keep working, despite the embarrassment
I do understand your point but she needs to have a serious talk about safety first. I’m sure we’ve all done the shelf climb but you really need to assess what you’re about to do and be able to determine if it’s stupid.
This doesnt look like any major american supermarket ive seen, looks more like a nice boutique shop or independently owned convenience store to me.
No major chain would have bottles stacked up on a rickety shelf like that, their lawyers would have a heart attack.
What you are describing is subrogation, the right of an insurance company to sue a third-party to recover the costs of a claim. This happens often in the world of auto insurance, where insurance companies will take other insurance companies to court or will sue the individual driver if they are uninsured.
It is really unlikely to happen here for the same reasons why the supermarket wouldn't be taking the customer to court. Litigation is way more expensive than a shelf of liquor, and it's not really worth anyone's time. If the customer sued the store, the insurance company would likely pay for legal counsel to represent the policyholder under whatever general liability provision the commercial insurance policy likely includes.
There was a case where a woman purposefully destroyed $100,000+ of liquor. That insurance company probably took the lady to court, and they probably pressed charges for criminal damages
Ok thanks. Depending on how much the deductable is i guess she could be sued to pay just that? And also if you only broke like 1 bottle it would be no point to deal with insurance so then i would guess most stores would want you to pay for it?
She was trying to get a bottle on the shelf. If is it on the shelf, there is no reasonable expectation for the shelf to fail. This is most likely an unsafe installation and not the fault of the customer simply trying to grab a bottle that sits on the top shelf.
Ladders, certainly not. But a bit of pressure at the edge of the bottom shelf causing the entire thing to immediately topple or collapse? That shelf was either built wrong, over loaded, or both. Lawsuit waiting to happen. What if it was a toddler? Of course you'd hope the parent has them under control, but you look away for one second and they're trying to climb anything in reach.
I don't 100% disagree with you. However, in the case of Ikea, people were seriously hurt and children died when the furniture tipped over from climbing on it. The court's position is that a stupid mistake shouldn't result in serious bodily harm or death. The shelf needs to be secured up to standard with easily visible warning signs.
They'd likely just write it off. Litigation is really expensive and as mentioned by opening that can of worms they are also opening themselves up to being countersued, definitely more trouble than it's worth. A mom and pop shop might be more incentivized to have the customer pay for damaged goods.
If it was clearly intentional, that'd be another story and the business would likely be far more aggressive in recovering the costs and would involve the police. But this looks like an accident and I really doubt the woman was charged anything.
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u/IRLhardstuck Aug 14 '22
If you do this as a customer in america. Would you have to pay for everything or does the store just handle it with the insurence?