Jury: Walmart to Pay $7.5 Million to Man Injured Buying Watermelon

Jury: Walmart to Pay $7.5 Million to Man Injured Buying Watermelon
Pixabay (CC0)
Petr Svab
11/10/2017
Updated:
10/5/2018

An Alabama jury awarded $7.5 million to a man who broke his hip buying a watermelon at Walmart.

Henry Walker walked into the Phoenix City Walmart in June 2015. He reached for a watermelon in a container sitting atop a pallet, unaware his foot had become lodged in the side opening of the pallet, according to one of Walker’s attorneys Shaun O'Hara.

Walmart Superstore in Phenix City, Ala.. (Screenshot via Google Street View)
Walmart Superstore in Phenix City, Ala.. (Screenshot via Google Street View)

When he turned back to his shopping cart, his foot stuck, he fell and broke his hip. The Army veteran was 59 at the time. He used to play basketball with friends three days a week before his fall, O’Hara said. Now he has to use a walker.

“You don’t expect to go into a grocery store walking fine on your two feet and come out on a stretcher,” O'Hara said, according to AL.com.

Walker sued Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for negligence and wantonness.

On Thursday, Nov. 9, a Russell County Circuit Court jury agreed on both counts and awarded Walker $2.5 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages.

“It was a fair verdict because Walmart just didn’t care,” said Charlie Gower, Walker’s lead attorney. “They should have had something to cover up that pallet so someone’s foot couldn’t get caught in it, and they didn’t.”

The jury viewed security footage from the store that showed several other people getting their feet caught in the pallet’s side opening.

“I think this jury appreciated what Mr. Walker went through and they compensated him accordingly,” said David Rayfield, Walker’s third attorney, The Ledger-Enquirer reported.

Wal-Mart Stores plans to appeal.

“We are disappointed in the verdict and believe that the damages awarded were excessive in light of the facts in this case,” said Randy Hargrove, a Wal-Mart Stores spokesman.

Walmart still uses the same watermelon displays.

Walmart is no stranger to getting sued by customers. In 2013 a Nebraska man sued the company because one of its shopping bags broke while his wife was carrying it. One of the cans in the bag fell on her big toe causing a deep cut. The injury caused an infection and despite antibiotics, two surgical procedures, and eventually hospitalizations the infection spread through the woman’s body “and ultimately resulted in her death on March 12, 2011,” the lawsuit stated.

The husband filled a wrongful death suit alleging Walmart was negligent because it failed to properly train its employees to not overfill grocery bags and to know when to double bag, Lincoln Journal Star reported. He demanded $656,000 in medical expenses in addition to an unspecified amount for her pain and suffering, funeral and burial expenses, and his loss of consortium.

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