*There is something quite ironic about this particular incident, wouldn’t you say? Even more so if the awardee turns out to be a
Black man.
If the irony is lost on you, so be it.
But let’s just assume Henry Walker, who slipped and fell while picking up a watermelon in an Alabama Walmart IS a Black man.
A jury decided to award him $2.5M after his lawyer successfully argued that the retailer didn’t care enough to secure a pallet where the fruit was placed and subsequently entrapped the man’s foot.
The incident actually happened in July 2015. Walker, who was once quite agile and used to play sports was 59-years-old at the time. But after his foot got caught and was subsequently broken — along with his hip — he has had to use a walker.
Of course the case isn’t as cut and dry to Walmart, whose story is that the display was safe and any injury was due to the consumer’s negligence. The retailer has no plans to change or rearrange the display.
Come on with it appears to be the unspoken response from Charlie Gower, Mr. Walker’s attorney, when speaking with the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.
“It was a fair verdict because Walmart just didn’t care,” he said. “They should have had something to cover up that pallet so someone’s foot couldn’t get caught in it, and they didn’t.”
Walmart’s court records claim, “These displays come to the store from the producer already packaged and ready to be dropped and displayed.”
I assume the “pallet” they mention is that wooden section on the floor that customers must slightly step up on — the one with the 1″ slats, pictured below.
A spokesman for Walmart said the damages are excessive, and they intend to appeal.
