Is Kohl's department store held liable for medical bill coverage, if my child falls out of shopping cart?
Ok, so I will start off saying I was an idiot, bad parent, lazy or what ever negative thing you can say. I've said it all to myself. In a nut shell t...
Ok, so I will start off saying I was an idiot, bad parent, lazy or what ever negative thing you can say. I’ve said it all to myself. In a nut shell this is what happened. We went shopping at Kohl’s with both our daughters, One 4 and the other 1. We put the girls in there own cart to shop and I had the 1 year old and buckled her in. We just sat our other daughter in her cart for she will buckle herself in. Well the cart that had our 1 year old, the wheels were not allowing us to turn. 30 Min’s into shopping I was so annoyed I got down to look at the tires to see if anything was jarring, no. So I said lets let the 4 year old walk and put the one year old in her cart. We moved all the items out of the one broken cart into the other. Then put the one year old in the good cart. Here is the "my bad parenting part", this carts buckle was missing one of the halves to buckle it together…….. Yep, I kept her in there thinning we are almost done shopping, we are at the very back of the store in the baby section and I will keep a eagle eye on her…….. One second look away she stood up and fell out face first.
Question: Is Kohl’s liable for medical bill coverage even though I was a dip for keeping her in the cart that was not properly equipped?
Injury report: She is fine but ER Visit is nothing to smile about!
We are not sueing, we fill responsible but at the same time we are hoping for a regulation on these shopping carts to be hourly inspected. Maybe supply an employee to pass out, sanitize, receive and inspect safey of carts as they are being used! Just thoughts. Look up how many children die due to this same type of issue. Stunning number! We fill very fortunate to escape with minor injuries! We will be more aware of our choice of carts in the future! We actually have been viewing shopping carts safty videos and have learned many more safty tips that we never even took in consideration. Thank you for your thoughts! Happy Holidays!
Lol, this is funny how a simple question has turned into an example of people who are showing that they #1 do not read the complete posting #2 do not understand what they are reading #3 come up with silly remarks… lol thanks Ins. Pickle Guy and Mr. Purprick!
Best answer goes to mbrcatz….
We were not planning to sue, we had asked there postion on the situiation and they told us they have to review the video. After that and finding 5 other carts that were not at safty standards, they are offering us to pay for the med bills and are sending a check for 00. So it is, what it is!
The question they asked was if the buckle was in the cart, would we have used it. The footage showed her buckled in the cart that would not turn and showed me grabbing the belt to buckle her in the one missing the buckle. Footage showed us not leaving her unattended. We never asked for payment we only asked there position. We have insurance and where covered!
Remember, Mr.andMrs. WONDERING!
Most stores commercial insurance policy has medical payment coverage which pays for medical bills from customers who sustain injuries in their store. Medical payment coverage pays if the store is at fault or the customer. It is also known as goodwill coverage due to this reason.
As for an employee to only dispense carts, check them etc would not be cost effective and I don’t see that happening at Kohl’s, Wallmart, Target etc. Just because it happened to you, could be a 1 time thing and remember you noticed that the latch was missing, so you had notice of its defect. Unless Kohl’s gets a lot of complaints of this, and maybe happens say once a year, then the added cost for an employee doing this, would add costs to things you buy at Kohl’s to compensate. Now if this is a recurring theme, that would be different, then the more reasonable approach would have someone say once a week go thu the carts and verify if defective, pull them out for repair and away from customers. I do know from personal experience from working at one big commercial insurance company, that 1 big hardware chain will NEVER pay for damages to a vehicle that has been damaged by a shopping cart. People argued that the store was responsible for getting the carts to avoid this, but they held firm, and NEVER PAID FOR ANY CLAIM.
Until this happened, you were not aware of potential dangers of shopping carts and did some research, nor did I till I read your post. With all the flu bugs going around, one suggestion and I have seen it in some stores, they have a dispenser of sanitized wipes that customers can use. They could put that by the carts, where the customer could get one and sanitize the cart prior to putting the child in.
I am old and when my daughter age 34 was a baby, there were not many things out there to protect her like they do today. She was surprised to learn that there were no baby seats for cars (we took the baby home in our arms) , nor were there any seat belts in shopping carts at that time. I now know from experience by doing claims that lives that are saved by the enforcement of using baby seats.
Be glad they have offered you $2,500 for the medical bills, since even if you wanted to sue, which you say you don’t, the standard is; WHAT WOULD A REASONABLE PERSON DO IN THIS CIRCUMSTANCE? Also, did you contribute to this injury?
Good luck and thankfully your child is ok.
I’d say you are responsible.
No, I don’t think Kohl’s is liable. If you had exchanged your cart for one with a broken buckle, you knew it was potentially a problem but you continued anyway, that’s really your negligence, not the store’s. If you try to sue them, you’ll just be wasting your time.
No, they are NOT automatically responsible for the injury to your child, just because it was their shopping cart.
Their cart wasn’t what caused her to fall – your allowing her to stand up, is why she fell. Even though it wasn’t direct permission, this wasn’t Kohl’s fault, it was yours.
Now, she’s fine, and for that we’re all grateful. So, I’m assuming Kohl’s filed an incident report at that time. You can take the ER bill to them, and ASK them to pay it – but most likely, they don’t have any "no fault" medical payments coverage. It’s entirely up to them to pay it if they want to – but they don’t HAVE to.
No they would not be responsible, yet there could be precedence in that they did not take care of their carts, but it looks suspicious that you moved the baby from the one cart to the other, just convenient you know. but i suppose as a parent you have to be a bit more aware of things like buckles and good turning wheels on a shopping cart.
If you think you’re responsible then why would you think someone else was responsible. Pay for your mistakes and move on.
You admit to a grievous, unforgiving error against your child, yet at the same time, you want another to pay for your admitted mistake. Something is wrong in this picture. How about you invite me to your home, I blindfold myself as a joke, trip on your sofa and fracture my wrist, and ask you to pay the doctor’s bill? What’s the difference?