National Retail Store Learns its Lesson: Hang your display frames securely

When a 45 year old nurse was shopping at a major retail clothier with her teenaged daughter, she was suddenly, with no warning, knocked in the head by a hard blow that snapped her neck back. The blow was delivered by a 27 pound wooden frame that had tipped over and fallen from a display shelf. As surprising as that was, the woman was even more surprised when her lawyer, Mark Streed, explained that the frame was, in fact, unsecured to the wall and was never meant to be attached in any way. The client went on to undergo TWO surgeries to her cervical spine and missed months of work time. Through discovery requests and depositions the store admitted that its own intricately planned floor displays had intentionally included specific directives that the large frames be leaned back, with the base positioned 3″ from the wall, and not attached to the wall. It was also learned that the store had misrepresented how the frame was displayed on the day of the incident, a misrepresentation that was exposed through one of their own employees. After exposing the store’s corporate negligence and failure to provide for customer safety, Streed was able to successfully negotiate a significant, but confidential (at the request of the store), settlement for his client.