A Store's Quick $750 Offer After a Slip-and-Fall Injury

Attorney Answer

You do not have to take it, and you should not decide until a doctor has looked at your knee. A quick offer made before anyone knows what the injury is buys the store certainty. It buys you $750 for an injury whose cost is still unknown, and signing for it ends the claim for good.

Start with what a store owes a customer in Texas, because that is what the store's own investigation is about. In Corbin v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 648 S.W.2d 292 (Tex. 1983), the Texas Supreme Court held that a store owes its customers, as invitees, a duty to exercise reasonable care to protect them against unreasonable risks of harm that the store knows about or, with reasonable care, should know about. In Keetch v. Kroger Co., 845 S.W.2d 262 (Tex. 1992), the same court set out what a customer has to prove: that the store had actual or constructive knowledge of a condition on the premises, that the condition posed an unreasonable risk of harm, that the store did not exercise reasonable care to reduce or eliminate the risk, and that the failure caused the injury. Keetch also held that the fact a store created the condition permits a jury to find knowledge but does not require it.

That is the honest shape of these cases, and you should hear it plainly. The hard element is knowledge. A store is not liable simply because something was on the floor and you slipped on it. You would need evidence that the store put it there, knew it was there, or that it had been there long enough that a reasonable store should have found it. The security footage the store said it would review is exactly the evidence that answers that question, which is why the store looked at it before making an offer, and why the offer came quickly.

An early offer is not a verdict. It reflects the store's estimate of its risk, made while you have no medical bills and no lawyer. What the offer does not reflect is the injury, because neither you nor the store knows yet what a knee injury from a fall involves, and some knee injuries show up only on imaging.

Texas divides fault by percentage. If the store argued you were not watching where you walked, the jury would assign percentages, and under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.001, a claimant whose share of responsibility is greater than 50 percent recovers nothing. Below that, the recovery is reduced by the claimant's percentage.

On the money for medical care: not being able to afford a visit is a real barrier, and it is also the thing the store's offer is counting on. Hospital emergency departments must evaluate you regardless of ability to pay, many community clinics charge on a sliding scale, and any health coverage you have applies to an injury like this. A medical record made now is both treatment and evidence.

What you can do

1. Get your knee examined now, at an urgent care, a community clinic or an emergency department, and tell the provider how the injury happened. Keep every record and bill.

2. Do not sign anything from the store, and do not accept the $750, until you know what the injury is. Tell the store, in writing, that the claim stays open while you are being treated.

3. Ask the store in writing to preserve the security footage of the fall and the area around it, and the incident report you filed. That is a request to keep records that already exist, not a statement about what happened.

4. Do not give a recorded statement or a written account of the fall to the store's claims office before you have spoken to a lawyer. You have already reported the incident; that is enough.

5. Write down nothing new, but keep what exists: photographs of your shoes and clothing from that day if you still have them, the name of anyone who saw you fall, and any text or call log with the store.

6. Talk to a local personal-injury attorney. Most take these cases on a contingency fee, which means no cost up front, and most offer a brief initial call at no cost. A few minutes on your specific facts, and on what the footage is likely to show, is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. A claim for injury in Texas is governed by Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003(a), which allows two years from the day the cause of action accrues. That is time to be examined and to get advice, not a reason to wait. Whether the period has run depends on your dates. Have a Texas attorney confirm them.