Metal cans fall from cart at Barry Road location
When you walk through QuikTrip, you don’t expect metal cans to fall from a cart and strike you. Yet, according to a local lawsuit, that is what happened to one customer while selecting a beverage.
Jessica Sims and Brian Sims, both 35 years old of Kansas City, filed a personal injury lawsuit on Friday, June 26, alleging QuikTrip employees’ negligent and reckless actions crushed Jessica Sims’s foot.
According to the 15-page suit filed in the Circuit Court of Platte County, Sims was shopping for a beverage inside the QuikTrip located at 7133 NW Barry Road, when a female employee wheeled a cart loaded with large metal cans in her direction. As the cart passed Sims, “several heavy cans” fell from the cart, reportedly hitting her foot and ankle.
As the lawsuit tells it, the cart was either haphazardly loaded or “improperly operated.” Additionally, the suit claims QuikTrip did not warn customers of the potential dangers.
“There were no cones or other warning devices of any kind put in place to alert customers that equipment was being operated or merchandise was being moved through that section of the store,” wrote the Sims’s attorney, Wes Shumate with Davis, Bethune & Jones LLC.
Sims did not have enough time to get out of the way without QuikTrip properly warning her about the danger of merchandise falling from stocking equipment, the suit maintains.
Jon Eric O’Dell, the general manager of the convenience store, and QuikTrip Corporation are listed as defendants in the lawsuit. The female employee who handled the cart is only identified as Jane Doe in the lawsuit.
“Defendants QuikTrip and O’Dell respectively had a duty to monitor and review their employees’ performance to ensure that they were fit and able to perform required tasks with care and competence and without exposing invitees to the store to unnecessary and unreasonable danger,” the suit says.
The lawsuit also argues that QuikTrip employees had a duty to exercise a reasonable amount of care in their dealings with customers.
“Defendants QuikTrip and O’Dell failed in these duties by hiring an employee, Jane Doe, who was unqualified to perform the required tasks due to her work history, inexperience, lack of skill, lack of training, lack of knowledge, and/or physical medical condition,” the suit says.
Specifically, the area where the employee was performing a task that could be hazardous to customers should have been partitioned off, the suit says. The suit further claims O’Dell failed to execute or enforce safety procedures that could have prevented such injuries.
From the incident, the suit claims, Sims sustained “serious, permanent and progressive injuries” to her foot and leg, including complex regional pain syndrome.
Sims is seeking compensation for incurred medical bills, prescription drugs and lost wages from her job as a substitute teacher.
Sims is also asking for punitive damages to punish QuikTrip and deter similar incidents.
Her husband, Brian, is seeking damages, claiming her injuries have caused a loss of companionship, loss of assistance with household chores and loss of household income.
“Brian Sims has suffered, continues to suffer, and will suffer in the future additional damages,” wrote Shumate.