Beware of Home Renovation Supply Warehouses

Home remodeling is a big business in the United States. When you’re spending thousands of dollars on new countertops, flooring, and appliances, you don’t want to risk colors being a shade off or missing out on a unique option you never would have found online.

With the luxury of shopping for home remodeling supplies comes the risk of losing life and limb – literally. Warehouses that sell custom renovation materials pose more of a premises liability risk than your average hardware store.

Supplies and fixtures are often packaged in crates or large boxes or they may even be hanging in a display area. There may also be employees operating heavy equipment to fill orders or restock the shelves while customers shop, which has the potential to be disastrous.

Accidents can happen from various levels of negligence in running these businesses including storing oversized merchandise that can topple over or fall causing:

• Crushing injuries when you become pinned between or under heavy objects.
• Instant death when improperly secured racking crashes down on top of you with all of its contents.
• Traumatic brain injury that can result after being knocked down or hit with a heavy object.
• Loss of a limb due to sharp edges on heavy objects falling on an arm or leg or power equipment being mishandled by an employee while custom cutting your materials and failing to follow proper safety protocols.

Forklifts can run over you, knock you down, or crush you against objects if the operator doesn’t see you. Two of the biggest causes of these careless mishaps are excessive speed and driving with an elevated or large load that blocks the operator’s line of sight.

Your first visit to a granite slab outlet could be your last

One of the most popular home materials to shop for is stone, which can be several hundred pounds per slab. It’s used for wall accents, flooring, fireplaces, and countertops and comes in infinite varieties and color schemes making it tough to choose without seeing it up close and in person. A number of injuries have occurred at granite suppliers across the country, including:

• A Charlotte, North Carolina man was killed after a slab fell on him while visiting a stone merchandise warehouse.
• A Massachusetts man was injured and taken to the hospital after a slab fell on him at a marble and granite showroom.
• Two contractors in upstate New York were crushed and killed by 11 slabs that were improperly loaded into their shipping container.

With at least 30 stone and granite warehouses and showrooms located in the greater Atlanta area, it’s very big business in Georgia. That makes it all the more important that you understand the types of devastating injuries you potentially face when visiting a home supply warehouse or showroom.

Home supply warehouses have become an essential part of our economy but because of the method by which they market and sell goods, they owe anyone who enters their property a specific duty of care to ensure their safety. When these businesses disregard that duty, people die or may suffer lifelong injuries.

If you or a loved one has been seriously hurt while conducting business in a home renovation warehouse or showroom, let the trusted catastrophic injury attorneys at Harris Lowry Manton LLP seek recovery for the damages you’ve sustained. Schedule your free case evaluation with one of our hard-hitting premises liability attorneys by calling our Savannah office at 912-417-3774, our Atlanta office at 404-998-8847, or we invite you to reach out to us through our contact page to tell us your story.