Photo: Chris Hondros/Getty Images
When Walmart isn’t firing their elderly employees for picking up a dollar off the ground, they are breaking hips left and right. Well, the latter is why the superstore giant now has to hand out the big bucks.
Way back in June 2015, a retired Sgt. named Henry Walker was shopping at a Walmart in Phenix City, Alabama, when he broke his hip while picking out a watermelon. The 59-year-old Army veteran reached for a watermelon and got his foot stuck in the side of a wooden pallet under the display. And that led to him falling and completely shatter his hip.
Walker’s attorney, Shaun O’Hara, said the injury permanently changed his client’s life: He used to play basketball three days a week and now must use a walker to get around. Walker sued Walmart for negligence and wantonness, arguing that the store had not kept its premises reasonably safe.
Jurors were shown security footage from the same store that showed several other customers had also caught their feet in the pallet, according to AL.com.
This past Wednesday, the jury awarded Walker $2.5 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages.
$7.5 million and all I have to do is bust my hip? Hey, I’ll take it. But of course, the evil Walmart folks has called the amount they have to pay “excessive in light of the facts,” and they say they plan to appeal the decision. Of course they do.
