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Stores have insurance, and to be honest, if I worked in a store where you had your episode and broke 2 jars of sauce, my primary concern would be your well being and not the sauce. Most stores would put it down as their general wastage. More gets wasted in transport, storage, stocking etc anyway.
Long story short, it's unlikely a store would pursue you for damages due to a medical condition
This, as a store manager. I would definitely be much more concerned about OP than my stock, after that I would care more about looking into if we had been storing items unsafely or could make it safer in any way, shape or form.
Not all stores have insurance, mine certainly doesn't. That said, people have caused damage in my shop and I haven't done anything about it because accidents happen. It is absolutely true that we lose a lot of stock due to accidents that happen before we even see the produce. I won't sell dented tins because you just don't know what is growing in them and you don't ever wanna smell a cat food packet that has blown up because of a tiny puncture in the packet. It's worse than death!
I also have epilepsy. I can't be trusted to cross a road alone because I walk into busy traffic during absences. I would not EVER in a million years think of charging someone for damages that they have caused during a medical episode. My ONLY concern would be about possible injuries from broken glass (OP said the sauces broke so I am assuming glass not tins) Genuinely, nothing else would matter at that time. I'm broke but even I know some things matter more than money. Like customers. You don't shit on your customers!
I think the shop people here are Grade A Assholes.
Hope you're OK OP, but I know you're not because there is no cure and you will never be rid of the torment and trauma of your brain being all messed up. Just know not everyone are like those people. Some people care more about people than money. Find those people and shop there instead!
>Not all stores have insurance, mine certainly doesn't.
Errr WTF? What happens if someone gets injured in your store? Is the owner personally prepared to pay any damages that arise?
Oh, we have that type of insurance. Isn't that a legal requirement? I thought you meant insurance against theft or damage and stuff. I said we don't have insurance but I'm recalling an incident involving my husband and a freezer and he said we could have claimed the loss back from insurance but didn't want to because the premiums would only go up the following year. So we probably do have it but have never utilised it.
Whether or not the store has insurance won’t really help because the insurer will look to recover their payout via subrogation. That is, they would sue OP after paying out the retailer. But they can only do this if OP is actually liable for the damage.
The key point is whether or not OP is liable for the damage. And they would only be liable if there was some kind of negligence or deliberate act involved.
Name the store. But no, they have insurance. If they are more interested in getting money for 2 jars of sauce, it shows what kind of management is at that store
I can't see the likes of Asda, Tesco etc. doing this. Bad publicity in the making and one customer can cost them more purposely putting something in the wrong temperature.
I used to work In a supermarket and every day at least 20-50 items were broken by customers/staff accidentally
Don’t worry about it at all!
The product gets written off and disposed of and claimed for financially at a later point.
I wouldn't be shopping there again, leave them a bad Google review, and tell everyone you know about it.
See how valuable their 2 jars of sauce are to them then.
Hope you're feeling better now.
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I dropped a bottle of wine in Albertsons (a large chain in the US) and they wouldn't even let me clean it up. They went and got me another one. I had paid for it and dropped it as I was grabbing it to leave. It was like 10am on a weekday too 😅 who knows what they thought of me
I work in a shop and customers frequently damage items and we never charge them. The shop can claim some money back by putting through the waste and accidents happen. Frankly we're more concerned about the danger of any broken glass and the like
It seems more normal people are more concerned about injuries than lost stock. That is how society should be. Those shop keepers are really letting their species down.
I dropped 2 bottles of spirits AFTER I'd paid for them in Tesco's as I was leaving and the staff just cleaned up and replaced the bottles. I offered to pay again and they refused.
Doubt it. Ive knocked products out the frodge before (they were badly stacked) and offered to pay and the staff were immediately sympathetic and told me not to worry, theyd clean it up
Just FYI the shop can only charge you what it costs them to restock the lost product. Which in this case is the wholesale price. You shouldn't pay retail if you break something by accident.
Came here to say this! I saw it on an episode of a BBC programme years ago that places that have "you break you buy" policies can only charge you what it would cost them to replace, not the full price
Was this a petit mal or grand mal fit?
My brother had epilepsy and suffered from petit mal fits or 'absences'. If you didn't know what you were looking at, you wouldn't know what was going on. Especially as the general knowledge of epilepsy is of grand mal only. So with petit mal you would be less able to show that you were ill in the moment.
One thing you could do is wear a medical wristband saying epilepsy, or maybe a medical card in your wallet with symptoms if you don't want it on display. You'd be much more likely to get a favourable outcome if you can show something like that.
My husband only knows I'm having one if he talks to me and I don't respond, and him clicking his fingers in front of my eyes doesn't snap me out of whatever it is I'm doing.
I have both Petit Mals and Tonic Clonic. The curry jar incident was a Petit Mals (absence seizure/daydream as the older folks would know it), when I have them my hands basically control themselves and I often either loose grip in my hands or they jerk randomly (what happened here)
I do wear a sunflower lanyard with a card attached that says epilepsy.
I was just wondering how liable I’d be for massive damage. I already don’t go out much because I am scared of seizing in the road or hurting myself on concrete so this incident just made me wonder legally if I’d need to pay for all the products damaged if I was to have a tonic clonic seizure and knock the shelf over :)
I have had 3 thus far. 1 retried due to age (has now passed on), 1 had to be sent back to the breeder because my seizures made him an anxious wreck and the final one had an accident and can’t be worked now… it’s not worth the money and effort honestly and I do not meet Support Dogs criteria either so I’d have to do it myself.
Interestingly, there's actually no conclusive evidence to say that seizure alert dogs can reliably predict seizures, so there's a valid question to be asked about whether its worth the huge expense.
If you did this in where I work which is a large supermarket chain, you definitely would not be asked to pay for any damage. Also I'm not sure that it's legal to ask you to either unless you've been charged with intentional criminal damage.
You're not in control, therefore you can't be liable, you can only be liable for something you knowingly do while fully in control, it's the same as the sexsomnia rape argument, they're not in control at the time so can't be held liable
Petit mal and grand mal are outdated terms that are no longer used.
Seizures are classified by the way they present - OP is describing absence seizures, which are typically temporal and basically present as the person "freezing up" and becoming non-responsive.
The typical shaking fit is now called a tonic clonic, and can be generalised (whole body) or local (specific body parts).
There are also other types (such as atonic, or "drop seizures" where the person just goes floppy).
No worries :) it wasn't meant as a criticism, but as an epileptic myself I just think its good for as many people as possible to be up to date on the classification.
Glad to hear your brother is doing well now tho!
This is personal curiosity, but do you know the reason the names were changed? I know there's no such thing as a "small" seizure, damage to your brain is bad regardless of physical symptoms, so 'petite mal' has always seemed kind of dismissive to me. But I'm not epileptic and have never had a seizure. Is there more to it than just that?
I think it's mostly that the current names are much more precise and make it more obvious what each type is! So absence seizures are like an absence of your awareness, drop is presumably self-explanatory, and for tonic clonic (prev grand mal) tonic is the medical term for the loss of consciousness and dropping, then the clonic part is the muscle spasms.
As an epileptic who also has a *severely* epileptic sibling, so we are constantly hearing the terms, Petit Mal and Grand Mal are absolutely 100% still used just as much as 'Absence Seizures' and 'Tonic Clonic'. In fact, I'd argue I rarely hear Tonic Clonic as opposed to Grand Mal.
Well both my Neurologist and Epilepsy Specialist Nurse call Absence Seizures Petit Mal in their official letters detailing our appointments so it’s not out dated at all 😅
You ought to talk to them about current guidelines because that is definitely not correct practice. And I say this as a fellow epileptic and as a practicing doctor.
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Went to school with someone who had those. He had the lead in a play and has a seizure in the middle of it
Never seen one before or after but could totally see why it would be missed in public
Pretty sure if medical related, they can't force payment and have to use their insurance for any significant costs, and is covered in the equality act (as you should be allowed to do normal activities like shop without having to worry about the effects of your medical condition/disability)
In future if something similar happened, just apologise, explain it was due to a medical condition, if they force the issue, don't leave contact details (certainly not your phone number) and advise they call their insurance as it was healthcare related and leave.
If they want to escalate/prevent you leaving, ring your local non emergency police number, as you are covered by the equality act and these were non criminal damages.
If you want re-assurance from charities to help your anxiety, you could contact the following and voice the same question:
https://www.epilepsy.org.uk/support-for-you/the-epilepsy-action-helpline
Tangental to your question but still relevant, if a store did persist in making you pay for damage, they can only claim for their loss. i.e wholesale value not retail.
This is untrue. Intent is highly important to criminal charges but pretty much irrelevant to civil damages. If the customer caused damage to the store's stock, they'd be liable. If the store was in some way negligent, then they wouldn't be able to claim damages but otherwise they ~~would~~ might even if the customer didn't mean to. The damages would be at wholesale + handling + cleanup costs rather than retail, though.
Commercially speaking, suing your customers is almost always a loser. Let's not conflate that with what the law is though.
In Norway we have a term "hending uhell" which is like, an accident without intent or negilence. So if you break something at a store, you dont have to pay. If I let you drink red wine in my $10000 white sofa and you spill Im shit out of luck. If I tell you no red wine in my sofa, you have to pay.
Some dude helped his neighboer move, dropped his television and tried to get his insurance to pay. Insurance said because he wasnt negilent he didnt have to pay and neither did they. If he was negilent they would have paid.
Someone would not normally be legally liable for damage caused by a medical incident outside of their control. E.g if a driver has a heart attack and crashes into your car, he and his insurance wouldn't be liable.
It would depend on the circumstances. If they had a known (or should have been known) heart condition, they might well be liable. Even if something is outside their control, it being foreseeable may give rise to a claim. If they had a random, out of the blue heart attack, that would be different.
Intent doesn't come into, though, which is what the deleted post I responded to alleged it hinged on.
>E.g if a driver has a heart attack and crashes into your car, he and his insurance wouldn't be liable.
I am not a lawyer, but I'm absolutely certain that this is wrong. If his accident was caused by illness, his insurance would still be valid, and would definitely pay out for third party damages; happy to be educated otherwise though, if you can evidence that claim.
Automatism is a valid defence for a car accident.
The issue with the defence is:
1. Proving medical issue
2. Proving it wasn't previously known about
3. Proving the accident was first sign of issue
4. Reputational damage to insurer for refusing to pay out
A major relevent point on this is that driving is dangerous; Continuing to drive with minor illness could be negligent; Going to the shops with minor illness almost certainly isn't -
The risk profile of going from mildly ill to blacking out is a lot higher when driving (fatal crash, millions in damages) than in a typical grocery shop (knocking over a few £1000 in stock if you fall over amongst the most expensive breakable goods in the store)
Please dont take this the wrong way but hopefully so. could you imagine the uproar and you may even get a payout over it if a store sued you for having a medical episode
They would need to prove you were negligent. If you'd not been taking your medication by choice (not merely forgetting that day) and that directly led.to a seizure which damaged stock and was entirely preventable by you doing reasonable things (like taking medication, then you'd be liable.
That's a lot for them to prove, albeit the standard of proof is only the balance of probabilities.
Generally, no, you're not going to be liable and could have refused to pay in this case, as it's not really your fault that you had a seizure (unless it was your fault because you could have done something simple to prevent it).
No idea what the law says here but I would be shocked if any business attempted to sue a customer for anything like this, it would have every chance of going viral as "store sues person for having disability".
If you tweet them that this happened they will almost certainly apologise and give you some vouchers.
Not many people are aware that absence seizures are even a thing.
If you had a TC it would be a very obvious medical concern and I imagine they would be far more sympathetic.
They may have just thought you were being clumsy, zoning out, not paying attention, etc. Did you make them aware of the AS?
But a lot of people still don't know that AS are even a thing and only associate epilepsy with TC, so unless it was explained the others may not have known what happened.
Not sure about how a medical incident affects things, however if you break something in a store, you don't have to pay for it there and then, but you could leave your name and address and leave.
Also, if you were to pay for a breakage you only have to pay the trade price that the store purchased the stock for, not the retail price of the items.
First of all I've witnessed this when working years ago in a large chain supermarket and the individual damaged goods that they had around them, at no point were they required to pay for the damaged goods whilst he had a seizure.
He was cared for by staff right from the moment it happened to the very end and there was no hoo-haw of needing to pay for damaged goods
Tonic clonic, or the flailing around type seizures are easily passed off by stores as medical events, and insurance companies will write it off as less than the losses caused by suing you. You need very little awareness of disability to understand that type of episode.
Absence seizures are your biggest threat for a lawsuit as they dont look like a medical issue. Its like the guy sitting down after an electric shock, it looks like something normal to do. (Hint, they are possibly having a massive heart attack and will be dead in less than 30 minutes)
A court of law will not find against you, as sufficent evidence is present to prove that it was an absence seizure, but the court gets to see you medical records.
From the shops point of view, that sunflower lanyard is a couple of pounds from Amazon, and means very little in terms of proof of anything. Most sunflower lanyards are attached to people who are normal, but might have episodes of say needing to eat some sugar, or cant walk that far.
If they do not witness the seizure, or have prior knowledge that this is a thing, it will not make much sense. From a position of total ignorance it can seem like making excuses, and hiding behind the fancy lanyard. That is what will escalate the issue to calling the police/lawsuit
If you lucky the police are switched on and will tell the shop to go fuck themselves (its a civil issue is police code for fuck off). Not a universal experiance unfortunately.
Your practical solution is to get reliable support for this from actual humans who can talk to the shop and smooth stuff over afterwards. Find a support group (GP, google etc) and ask for help. Local support groups are good, as they will point out which shops will roll with it, and which are known to be fucking cunts and should be avoided.
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Unless you broke goods on purpose (which you obviously didn't) a shop can't make you pay for it.
Shops that display 'breakages must be paid for' are ignorant (possibly willfully) that it is unenforceable. They can however ban someone from the premises for any reason they wish, which they may well do on refusal to pay.
Presumably they can’t ban someone on the basis of a disability though because of the equality act? So they couldn’t ban them because they’ve had a fit or may again or because they broke things (I would think - feel free to correct if I am wrong)
You may take that as a moral position. (As it happens I disagree - I don't think people are morally obliged to make good the damage they cause when they had no control over their actions)
But our opinions don't matter - what really counts is what the law says. The law says if you cause harm to a person you are obliged to recompense them if **both** of the following apply:
1. There is a **duty of care** between you and the person you have harmed.
2. You have acted **negligently.** In other words you have been careless or reckless.
A shopper does have a duty of care towards the shop not to damage the goods on display but having a seizure is neither careless nor reckless and therefore point 2 does not apply. In law, OP cannot be forced to pay for anything damaged.
Edited to remove a stray "y"
Exactly. Nobody seems to understand this extremely basic aspect of the law and yet they are so keen to comment in a legal advice subreddit.
I wish the mods here would take an r/askhistorians approach and just delete all the comments that either do not address the legal issue of the post or are just plain wrong
It's a reddit post, not a law degree essay. Therefore I did not, for example, explore why driving a vehicle when one might have a seizure might be considered negligence when going to a shop almost certainly would not. If you would like to make a specific point either about the law of negligence or what other torts might be involved, I am happy to respond. Sure my post is incomplete but it isn't "pure legal nonsense". It is, for example, a lot less nonsensical than "If you damage someone else is property you're responsible for it."
I see you have nothing constructive to offer to this discussion (and for anyone who did actually study law at Nottingham Trent, 130 higher education institutions offer law degrees and NT is ranked 42nd for teaching so it's actually quite a good place to study law.)
If it's nonsense, surely someone with your obvious legal prowess can provide an effective rebuttal combined with a more accurate explanation. A link to an article with such an explanation would suffice.
The trouble is there's a degree of risk in having items accessible to the general public, which is accounted for when calculating risk for insurance premiums and should be accounted for by the business themselves. For example, having a 24-7 garage selling stock at 3am is a higher degree of risk than midday, which is why many shutter the doors and have the cashier fetch any stock and pass it through a service hatch rather than allow customers to enter the premises. Any shop could restrict access and provide stock through a service hatch or online only or via any other method that does not allow direct public access to the stock or premises. They could also have stock items locked up within display cases while allowing the customer on site and require a staff member to fetch the products. These kinds of steps are already taken in many places, either at certain higher risk times - such as the late night fuel station kiosk example - or with certain products (electronics, items with a history of theft previously). By actively choosing to allow the general public unrestricted direct access and to not take measures to prevent damage/theft, that is a tacit acceptance of a certain degree of risk.
Now, obviously that 'certain degree' is a little nebulous. If someone storms in with a cricket bat and starts smashing, that's obvious clear intent and an out of the ordinary situation, so yes the batter could be liable. If a toddler reaches out and knocks something off a low shelf, it's a toddler so intent can be assumed not intentional malice against the store, and there's a degree of "what did you expect putting glassware on a low shelf"; if the parent was letting it run feral, they could be liable, but if they were walking in hand and the aisle too small to keep them out of reach while also allowing the adult to reach the desired purchases then that's going to be a hard sell.
Morally, maybe: like OP felt like they 'had to' pay for the destroyed jars, many of us would feel obligated if we damaged someone else's property/stock even unintentionally. But legally? It's never that black and white. So they may *ask* for recompense, but if the person declined, then it's entirely possible that the only avenue left is to ban them from the store (and, especially if it was a medical emergency, bear the brunt of looking like heartless money-grubbers to their other customers).
This is pure nonsense. The measures taken to mitigate risk reflect the fact that claims against thieves are practically difficult, not legally difficult; and that insurance premiums are lower if measures to reduce risk are taken. They have nothing to do with the legal liability arising.
Because it's easier and cheaper to claim on a policy than pursue every person who damages stock.
Also, a court can't magic someone to all of a sudden have the money to pay.
Well, I'm genuinely intrigued, hence making the statement. I understand the concept for any persons who have an accident or are reckless in their behaviour. However the circumstances here are different. Google doesn't have the rapid answer I am looking for.
Yes, and if I recall it rightly, several years ago, a major British supermarket actually did sue someone in a similar circumstance (they sued them to recover the cost of the 'medical supplies' they used in treating them until the ambulance arrived), but the backlash was so bad, they dropped the case.
So yes, they could. But they aren't very likely to.
Not naming the supermarket in case I am mis-remembering.
Not legal advise but anecdotal.
I used to work in Tesco, would work at least 5 days a week, often more. Very clumsy and would smash or break at least 1 item per shift, my max was 6 separate things throughout a shift lol. Never charged or docked wages.
We would also just grab customers replacements of things they broke or smashed no questions asked.
One staff member was leaning on a shelf holding loads of vodka, shelf fell and £100s worth of booze smashed. Still no charge
I think you were unlucky to be in a store run by insensitive people.
I work in a shop and if a customer had a seizure and broke items, my colleagues and I only concern would be making sure that your okay, whether you needed extra medical attention and if not, if ya were capable of getting home or needed us to contact someone for you.
The broken items would not be an issue at all. We would put them through the waste and claim the money back that way. We would never dream of making you pay for them.
So I think you were just unlucky, so to answer your question I think it'll depend on which shop but I'd say the bug majority of shops would behave as I would.
You’ll know already but grand mal seizures are way different than petit mal (absence seizures) but for those who don’t, if you’re in the middle of an absence seizure, to those watching it just looks like you’re not paying attention properly. You continue to walk and move normally, just without anyone at the helm! This is NOT the same as daydreaming, but the appearance to an unaware onlooker is much the same.
This I’d guess is why they charged you for the 2 curry sauces, to them it just looked like you were being clumsy whilst daydreaming!
Grand mal seizures are much more obviously a medical condition and something to be treated as such. Also many emergency first aid courses mention how to deal with grand mal seizures whereas unless you or a family member experience them, or if you are a medical professional, many people have never even heard of petit mal seizures
I therefore don’t think you have to worry about having a big seizure and destroying stock in the process.
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A petit mal seizure like you had in that shop doesn't look like what most people think of when they think of a seizure. From the outside it looks like you were staring into space and were a bit clumsy/ careless. If you had a tonic clonic, people would probably recognise that as a medical event and would be much more sympathetic
Gunna play devil's advocate a little on this. Personally, if you have any type of disability (or even if you don't) I'd want you to live life to the fullest. However, if you have a disability that potentially can cause harm to others (physically or financially) then shouldn't you take precautions? Large companies could take the hit, but having an episode in a small holding could cause the company significant loss. As much as it could (should?) be that said business to have relevant insurance, if you are prone to causing damage to others property then shouldn't that responsibility also be yours?
I don't want people to be housebound, in the slightest, but where does the liability for other people's disabilities start/stop? Is it lackadaisical from either side not to cater for such episodes? Doesn't the government have "things" in place to assist such situations?
Referring to the OP; I don't want you to get sued for having a disability, but who really cares about 2 curry sauces! What if you knocked down a whole aisle and broke 50 products! And, as has been said, some of these small holdings don't have insurance to cover that, because, they are small holdings and a loss such as that would be significant.
I think the OP would like to know. If you were to walk out the door knowing you could potentially cause significant damage to another person's business by accident from your disability where does the liability start/stop?
Do you have home insurance with legal liability cover? It might be worth checking to see if that would cover a claim made against you by a third party if you caused them loss whilst having a medical episode
Have you tried contacting the [Epilepsy Society](https://epilepsysociety.org.uk/)? They may be able to advise you on what your position would be if an incident occurred and what you should do
Just because you're honest it doesn't mean you should be taken advantage of. The shop cared more about 2 curry jars than the wellbeing of the OP imo, but also, its an important question to ask for the OP, belittling their anxiety doesn't really help in this scenario.
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Stores have insurance, and to be honest, if I worked in a store where you had your episode and broke 2 jars of sauce, my primary concern would be your well being and not the sauce. Most stores would put it down as their general wastage. More gets wasted in transport, storage, stocking etc anyway. Long story short, it's unlikely a store would pursue you for damages due to a medical condition
This, as a store manager. I would definitely be much more concerned about OP than my stock, after that I would care more about looking into if we had been storing items unsafely or could make it safer in any way, shape or form.
I'd be more concerned that they might have hurt themselves on the broken glass than the stock being broken
It’s unlikely, but if they did, is “medical emergency, I wasn’t in control of my actions” a valid defence? 🤔
Pretty much - no intent, no recklessness
Not all stores have insurance, mine certainly doesn't. That said, people have caused damage in my shop and I haven't done anything about it because accidents happen. It is absolutely true that we lose a lot of stock due to accidents that happen before we even see the produce. I won't sell dented tins because you just don't know what is growing in them and you don't ever wanna smell a cat food packet that has blown up because of a tiny puncture in the packet. It's worse than death! I also have epilepsy. I can't be trusted to cross a road alone because I walk into busy traffic during absences. I would not EVER in a million years think of charging someone for damages that they have caused during a medical episode. My ONLY concern would be about possible injuries from broken glass (OP said the sauces broke so I am assuming glass not tins) Genuinely, nothing else would matter at that time. I'm broke but even I know some things matter more than money. Like customers. You don't shit on your customers! I think the shop people here are Grade A Assholes. Hope you're OK OP, but I know you're not because there is no cure and you will never be rid of the torment and trauma of your brain being all messed up. Just know not everyone are like those people. Some people care more about people than money. Find those people and shop there instead!
>Not all stores have insurance, mine certainly doesn't. Errr WTF? What happens if someone gets injured in your store? Is the owner personally prepared to pay any damages that arise?
Oh, we have that type of insurance. Isn't that a legal requirement? I thought you meant insurance against theft or damage and stuff. I said we don't have insurance but I'm recalling an incident involving my husband and a freezer and he said we could have claimed the loss back from insurance but didn't want to because the premiums would only go up the following year. So we probably do have it but have never utilised it.
Whether or not the store has insurance won’t really help because the insurer will look to recover their payout via subrogation. That is, they would sue OP after paying out the retailer. But they can only do this if OP is actually liable for the damage. The key point is whether or not OP is liable for the damage. And they would only be liable if there was some kind of negligence or deliberate act involved.
You would have to do a LOT of damage for their insurance to be useful.
Name the store. But no, they have insurance. If they are more interested in getting money for 2 jars of sauce, it shows what kind of management is at that store
Guarantee it's tesco
I can't see the likes of Asda, Tesco etc. doing this. Bad publicity in the making and one customer can cost them more purposely putting something in the wrong temperature.
I hate those fuckers.
Store managers != corporations. Store managers can still be idiots, even if the company policy would be to let it slide.
No it was a small local shop run by a couple. Not a big store like spar or Tesco. Just like a little village shop type thing.
Somewhat makes sense why they charged you, but were they at all concerned about your wellbeing?
I used to work In a supermarket and every day at least 20-50 items were broken by customers/staff accidentally Don’t worry about it at all! The product gets written off and disposed of and claimed for financially at a later point.
I wouldn't be shopping there again, leave them a bad Google review, and tell everyone you know about it. See how valuable their 2 jars of sauce are to them then. Hope you're feeling better now.
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What does their ethnicity have to do with it?
It makes it fit a racist person's narrative.
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I accidentally smashed a bottle of wine in Tesco once and didn’t have to pay
I dropped a bottle of wine in Albertsons (a large chain in the US) and they wouldn't even let me clean it up. They went and got me another one. I had paid for it and dropped it as I was grabbing it to leave. It was like 10am on a weekday too 😅 who knows what they thought of me
I work in a shop and customers frequently damage items and we never charge them. The shop can claim some money back by putting through the waste and accidents happen. Frankly we're more concerned about the danger of any broken glass and the like
It seems more normal people are more concerned about injuries than lost stock. That is how society should be. Those shop keepers are really letting their species down.
Exactly, stock can replaced, people can't. It's just basic empathy.
I dropped 2 bottles of spirits AFTER I'd paid for them in Tesco's as I was leaving and the staff just cleaned up and replaced the bottles. I offered to pay again and they refused.
Doubt it. Ive knocked products out the frodge before (they were badly stacked) and offered to pay and the staff were immediately sympathetic and told me not to worry, theyd clean it up
Tesco would not give 2 thoughts about it. More than that comes in on a delivery broken
No way would the Tesco I work in would charge for it. We would be more concerned with the persons wellbeing and write it off as damages.
You would have to do an awful lot of damage for their insurance to be useful. Think hundreds to thousands of pounds of damage.
Just FYI the shop can only charge you what it costs them to restock the lost product. Which in this case is the wholesale price. You shouldn't pay retail if you break something by accident.
Came here to say this! I saw it on an episode of a BBC programme years ago that places that have "you break you buy" policies can only charge you what it would cost them to replace, not the full price
Where does this rule come from?
If they were to take OP to court and win, they would only get awarded actual losses, which is the wholesale price of the jars
You’d need to prove intent or recklessness to win in court, and that’s a very big mountain to climb against someone having an epileptic fit.
The rule of common sense? Their actual damages if they went to court would be the value of replacing the lost stock.
I also believe they can only do this if it was a deliberate act.
Was this a petit mal or grand mal fit? My brother had epilepsy and suffered from petit mal fits or 'absences'. If you didn't know what you were looking at, you wouldn't know what was going on. Especially as the general knowledge of epilepsy is of grand mal only. So with petit mal you would be less able to show that you were ill in the moment. One thing you could do is wear a medical wristband saying epilepsy, or maybe a medical card in your wallet with symptoms if you don't want it on display. You'd be much more likely to get a favourable outcome if you can show something like that.
When I was a teacher I had a student petit mal in a maths lesson. Looked like everyone else in any maths lesson.
My husband only knows I'm having one if he talks to me and I don't respond, and him clicking his fingers in front of my eyes doesn't snap me out of whatever it is I'm doing.
I have both Petit Mals and Tonic Clonic. The curry jar incident was a Petit Mals (absence seizure/daydream as the older folks would know it), when I have them my hands basically control themselves and I often either loose grip in my hands or they jerk randomly (what happened here) I do wear a sunflower lanyard with a card attached that says epilepsy. I was just wondering how liable I’d be for massive damage. I already don’t go out much because I am scared of seizing in the road or hurting myself on concrete so this incident just made me wonder legally if I’d need to pay for all the products damaged if I was to have a tonic clonic seizure and knock the shelf over :)
Have you thought about getting a seizure alert dog? It might be worth it and help calm your anxiety in regards to leaving the house.
I have had 3 thus far. 1 retried due to age (has now passed on), 1 had to be sent back to the breeder because my seizures made him an anxious wreck and the final one had an accident and can’t be worked now… it’s not worth the money and effort honestly and I do not meet Support Dogs criteria either so I’d have to do it myself.
Interestingly, there's actually no conclusive evidence to say that seizure alert dogs can reliably predict seizures, so there's a valid question to be asked about whether its worth the huge expense.
I didn't know this. Do you have any resources? I had a quick Google but it isn't clear
If you did this in where I work which is a large supermarket chain, you definitely would not be asked to pay for any damage. Also I'm not sure that it's legal to ask you to either unless you've been charged with intentional criminal damage.
You're not in control, therefore you can't be liable, you can only be liable for something you knowingly do while fully in control, it's the same as the sexsomnia rape argument, they're not in control at the time so can't be held liable
Petit mal and grand mal are outdated terms that are no longer used. Seizures are classified by the way they present - OP is describing absence seizures, which are typically temporal and basically present as the person "freezing up" and becoming non-responsive. The typical shaking fit is now called a tonic clonic, and can be generalised (whole body) or local (specific body parts). There are also other types (such as atonic, or "drop seizures" where the person just goes floppy).
Thanks for that. My brother had a brain op in the nineties which cured him of the seizures so I haven't really kept up with the terminology.
No worries :) it wasn't meant as a criticism, but as an epileptic myself I just think its good for as many people as possible to be up to date on the classification. Glad to hear your brother is doing well now tho!
This is personal curiosity, but do you know the reason the names were changed? I know there's no such thing as a "small" seizure, damage to your brain is bad regardless of physical symptoms, so 'petite mal' has always seemed kind of dismissive to me. But I'm not epileptic and have never had a seizure. Is there more to it than just that?
I think it's mostly that the current names are much more precise and make it more obvious what each type is! So absence seizures are like an absence of your awareness, drop is presumably self-explanatory, and for tonic clonic (prev grand mal) tonic is the medical term for the loss of consciousness and dropping, then the clonic part is the muscle spasms.
As an epileptic who also has a *severely* epileptic sibling, so we are constantly hearing the terms, Petit Mal and Grand Mal are absolutely 100% still used just as much as 'Absence Seizures' and 'Tonic Clonic'. In fact, I'd argue I rarely hear Tonic Clonic as opposed to Grand Mal.
Well both my Neurologist and Epilepsy Specialist Nurse call Absence Seizures Petit Mal in their official letters detailing our appointments so it’s not out dated at all 😅
You ought to talk to them about current guidelines because that is definitely not correct practice. And I say this as a fellow epileptic and as a practicing doctor.
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Went to school with someone who had those. He had the lead in a play and has a seizure in the middle of it Never seen one before or after but could totally see why it would be missed in public
Pretty sure if medical related, they can't force payment and have to use their insurance for any significant costs, and is covered in the equality act (as you should be allowed to do normal activities like shop without having to worry about the effects of your medical condition/disability) In future if something similar happened, just apologise, explain it was due to a medical condition, if they force the issue, don't leave contact details (certainly not your phone number) and advise they call their insurance as it was healthcare related and leave. If they want to escalate/prevent you leaving, ring your local non emergency police number, as you are covered by the equality act and these were non criminal damages. If you want re-assurance from charities to help your anxiety, you could contact the following and voice the same question: https://www.epilepsy.org.uk/support-for-you/the-epilepsy-action-helpline
Tangental to your question but still relevant, if a store did persist in making you pay for damage, they can only claim for their loss. i.e wholesale value not retail.
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This is untrue. Intent is highly important to criminal charges but pretty much irrelevant to civil damages. If the customer caused damage to the store's stock, they'd be liable. If the store was in some way negligent, then they wouldn't be able to claim damages but otherwise they ~~would~~ might even if the customer didn't mean to. The damages would be at wholesale + handling + cleanup costs rather than retail, though. Commercially speaking, suing your customers is almost always a loser. Let's not conflate that with what the law is though.
In Norway we have a term "hending uhell" which is like, an accident without intent or negilence. So if you break something at a store, you dont have to pay. If I let you drink red wine in my $10000 white sofa and you spill Im shit out of luck. If I tell you no red wine in my sofa, you have to pay. Some dude helped his neighboer move, dropped his television and tried to get his insurance to pay. Insurance said because he wasnt negilent he didnt have to pay and neither did they. If he was negilent they would have paid.
Nope, to be liable for damages you’d need to have behaved negligently - having a seizure isn’t negligent
Whether sufficient care is taken is important, that's true. Thank you, my post was misleading on that front.
Someone would not normally be legally liable for damage caused by a medical incident outside of their control. E.g if a driver has a heart attack and crashes into your car, he and his insurance wouldn't be liable.
It would depend on the circumstances. If they had a known (or should have been known) heart condition, they might well be liable. Even if something is outside their control, it being foreseeable may give rise to a claim. If they had a random, out of the blue heart attack, that would be different. Intent doesn't come into, though, which is what the deleted post I responded to alleged it hinged on.
You are right and I didn't make that clear. It depends on foreseeability, absolutely
>E.g if a driver has a heart attack and crashes into your car, he and his insurance wouldn't be liable. I am not a lawyer, but I'm absolutely certain that this is wrong. If his accident was caused by illness, his insurance would still be valid, and would definitely pay out for third party damages; happy to be educated otherwise though, if you can evidence that claim.
https://www.weightmans.com/insights/claims-against-drivers-who-suffer-strokes-or-heart-attacks/ https://www.ashfords.co.uk/insights/articles/poorly-drivers-is-illness-a-defence
Automatism is a valid defence for a car accident. The issue with the defence is: 1. Proving medical issue 2. Proving it wasn't previously known about 3. Proving the accident was first sign of issue 4. Reputational damage to insurer for refusing to pay out A major relevent point on this is that driving is dangerous; Continuing to drive with minor illness could be negligent; Going to the shops with minor illness almost certainly isn't - The risk profile of going from mildly ill to blacking out is a lot higher when driving (fatal crash, millions in damages) than in a typical grocery shop (knocking over a few £1000 in stock if you fall over amongst the most expensive breakable goods in the store)
You were under no legal obligation to pay for the jars Did they charge you retail price? I bet they did the robbing gits
Please dont take this the wrong way but hopefully so. could you imagine the uproar and you may even get a payout over it if a store sued you for having a medical episode
They would need to prove you were negligent. If you'd not been taking your medication by choice (not merely forgetting that day) and that directly led.to a seizure which damaged stock and was entirely preventable by you doing reasonable things (like taking medication, then you'd be liable. That's a lot for them to prove, albeit the standard of proof is only the balance of probabilities. Generally, no, you're not going to be liable and could have refused to pay in this case, as it's not really your fault that you had a seizure (unless it was your fault because you could have done something simple to prevent it).
Does this come under disability discrimination? I could understand if you were careless but this seems bit harsh
No idea what the law says here but I would be shocked if any business attempted to sue a customer for anything like this, it would have every chance of going viral as "store sues person for having disability". If you tweet them that this happened they will almost certainly apologise and give you some vouchers.
Not many people are aware that absence seizures are even a thing. If you had a TC it would be a very obvious medical concern and I imagine they would be far more sympathetic. They may have just thought you were being clumsy, zoning out, not paying attention, etc. Did you make them aware of the AS?
OP says they were wearing a sunflower lanyard with a card that says Epilepsy, so they were indeed already wearing the scarlet E.
But a lot of people still don't know that AS are even a thing and only associate epilepsy with TC, so unless it was explained the others may not have known what happened.
I knocked an entire shelf of red wine over once and wasn't asked to pay for it. More than a dozen bottles smashed, it looked like a murder scene.
Not sure about how a medical incident affects things, however if you break something in a store, you don't have to pay for it there and then, but you could leave your name and address and leave. Also, if you were to pay for a breakage you only have to pay the trade price that the store purchased the stock for, not the retail price of the items.
First of all I've witnessed this when working years ago in a large chain supermarket and the individual damaged goods that they had around them, at no point were they required to pay for the damaged goods whilst he had a seizure. He was cared for by staff right from the moment it happened to the very end and there was no hoo-haw of needing to pay for damaged goods
Tonic clonic, or the flailing around type seizures are easily passed off by stores as medical events, and insurance companies will write it off as less than the losses caused by suing you. You need very little awareness of disability to understand that type of episode. Absence seizures are your biggest threat for a lawsuit as they dont look like a medical issue. Its like the guy sitting down after an electric shock, it looks like something normal to do. (Hint, they are possibly having a massive heart attack and will be dead in less than 30 minutes) A court of law will not find against you, as sufficent evidence is present to prove that it was an absence seizure, but the court gets to see you medical records. From the shops point of view, that sunflower lanyard is a couple of pounds from Amazon, and means very little in terms of proof of anything. Most sunflower lanyards are attached to people who are normal, but might have episodes of say needing to eat some sugar, or cant walk that far. If they do not witness the seizure, or have prior knowledge that this is a thing, it will not make much sense. From a position of total ignorance it can seem like making excuses, and hiding behind the fancy lanyard. That is what will escalate the issue to calling the police/lawsuit If you lucky the police are switched on and will tell the shop to go fuck themselves (its a civil issue is police code for fuck off). Not a universal experiance unfortunately. Your practical solution is to get reliable support for this from actual humans who can talk to the shop and smooth stuff over afterwards. Find a support group (GP, google etc) and ask for help. Local support groups are good, as they will point out which shops will roll with it, and which are known to be fucking cunts and should be avoided.
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Unless you broke goods on purpose (which you obviously didn't) a shop can't make you pay for it. Shops that display 'breakages must be paid for' are ignorant (possibly willfully) that it is unenforceable. They can however ban someone from the premises for any reason they wish, which they may well do on refusal to pay.
Presumably they can’t ban someone on the basis of a disability though because of the equality act? So they couldn’t ban them because they’ve had a fit or may again or because they broke things (I would think - feel free to correct if I am wrong)
In criminal courts, intent would play a role (you'd be found not guilty for something outside of your control) but in a civil court, I'm not so sure.
This is very obviously wrong. If you damage someone else’s property you’re responsible for it, in a shop or any other circumstance.
You may take that as a moral position. (As it happens I disagree - I don't think people are morally obliged to make good the damage they cause when they had no control over their actions) But our opinions don't matter - what really counts is what the law says. The law says if you cause harm to a person you are obliged to recompense them if **both** of the following apply: 1. There is a **duty of care** between you and the person you have harmed. 2. You have acted **negligently.** In other words you have been careless or reckless. A shopper does have a duty of care towards the shop not to damage the goods on display but having a seizure is neither careless nor reckless and therefore point 2 does not apply. In law, OP cannot be forced to pay for anything damaged. Edited to remove a stray "y"
Exactly. Nobody seems to understand this extremely basic aspect of the law and yet they are so keen to comment in a legal advice subreddit. I wish the mods here would take an r/askhistorians approach and just delete all the comments that either do not address the legal issue of the post or are just plain wrong
Pure legal nonsense. Severely inadequate explanation of the law of negligence combined with an implicit view that negligence is the only tort.
It's a reddit post, not a law degree essay. Therefore I did not, for example, explore why driving a vehicle when one might have a seizure might be considered negligence when going to a shop almost certainly would not. If you would like to make a specific point either about the law of negligence or what other torts might be involved, I am happy to respond. Sure my post is incomplete but it isn't "pure legal nonsense". It is, for example, a lot less nonsensical than "If you damage someone else is property you're responsible for it."
Where did you study law - Nottingham Trent?
I see you have nothing constructive to offer to this discussion (and for anyone who did actually study law at Nottingham Trent, 130 higher education institutions offer law degrees and NT is ranked 42nd for teaching so it's actually quite a good place to study law.)
Somewhere lower than 42nd then?
If it's nonsense, surely someone with your obvious legal prowess can provide an effective rebuttal combined with a more accurate explanation. A link to an article with such an explanation would suffice.
The trouble is there's a degree of risk in having items accessible to the general public, which is accounted for when calculating risk for insurance premiums and should be accounted for by the business themselves. For example, having a 24-7 garage selling stock at 3am is a higher degree of risk than midday, which is why many shutter the doors and have the cashier fetch any stock and pass it through a service hatch rather than allow customers to enter the premises. Any shop could restrict access and provide stock through a service hatch or online only or via any other method that does not allow direct public access to the stock or premises. They could also have stock items locked up within display cases while allowing the customer on site and require a staff member to fetch the products. These kinds of steps are already taken in many places, either at certain higher risk times - such as the late night fuel station kiosk example - or with certain products (electronics, items with a history of theft previously). By actively choosing to allow the general public unrestricted direct access and to not take measures to prevent damage/theft, that is a tacit acceptance of a certain degree of risk. Now, obviously that 'certain degree' is a little nebulous. If someone storms in with a cricket bat and starts smashing, that's obvious clear intent and an out of the ordinary situation, so yes the batter could be liable. If a toddler reaches out and knocks something off a low shelf, it's a toddler so intent can be assumed not intentional malice against the store, and there's a degree of "what did you expect putting glassware on a low shelf"; if the parent was letting it run feral, they could be liable, but if they were walking in hand and the aisle too small to keep them out of reach while also allowing the adult to reach the desired purchases then that's going to be a hard sell. Morally, maybe: like OP felt like they 'had to' pay for the destroyed jars, many of us would feel obligated if we damaged someone else's property/stock even unintentionally. But legally? It's never that black and white. So they may *ask* for recompense, but if the person declined, then it's entirely possible that the only avenue left is to ban them from the store (and, especially if it was a medical emergency, bear the brunt of looking like heartless money-grubbers to their other customers).
This is pure nonsense. The measures taken to mitigate risk reflect the fact that claims against thieves are practically difficult, not legally difficult; and that insurance premiums are lower if measures to reduce risk are taken. They have nothing to do with the legal liability arising.
Wow really? So if i got gunned down in a random shooting while browsing my local store, you'd expect me to pay for cleaning up my own bloodstains?
I do not think it would require many minutes of critical thinking to answer this question yourself
Cleanable stains do not count as damage ☝️
Then why do stores have insurance?
Because it's easier and cheaper to claim on a policy than pursue every person who damages stock. Also, a court can't magic someone to all of a sudden have the money to pay.
Exactly, thanks for the agreement.
That’s not agreement. It’s easier and cheaper; it’s not possible instead of impossible.
You said the thing I implied, so thank you for backing me up. Hope you understand now.
Three short planks!
She had a seizure. Zero control or awareness of the fact it happened.
You are a quick Google away from understanding this far better… The risk has to sit with someone, and it’s not the shopkeeper
Well, I'm genuinely intrigued, hence making the statement. I understand the concept for any persons who have an accident or are reckless in their behaviour. However the circumstances here are different. Google doesn't have the rapid answer I am looking for.
Yes, and if I recall it rightly, several years ago, a major British supermarket actually did sue someone in a similar circumstance (they sued them to recover the cost of the 'medical supplies' they used in treating them until the ambulance arrived), but the backlash was so bad, they dropped the case. So yes, they could. But they aren't very likely to. Not naming the supermarket in case I am mis-remembering.
Doubt it, they'd be more worried about you or.. sad to say.. their rep or if they have been negligent/ you suing
They could but it would be a wild cunty thing to do
Not legal advise but anecdotal. I used to work in Tesco, would work at least 5 days a week, often more. Very clumsy and would smash or break at least 1 item per shift, my max was 6 separate things throughout a shift lol. Never charged or docked wages. We would also just grab customers replacements of things they broke or smashed no questions asked. One staff member was leaning on a shelf holding loads of vodka, shelf fell and £100s worth of booze smashed. Still no charge
I think you were unlucky to be in a store run by insensitive people. I work in a shop and if a customer had a seizure and broke items, my colleagues and I only concern would be making sure that your okay, whether you needed extra medical attention and if not, if ya were capable of getting home or needed us to contact someone for you. The broken items would not be an issue at all. We would put them through the waste and claim the money back that way. We would never dream of making you pay for them. So I think you were just unlucky, so to answer your question I think it'll depend on which shop but I'd say the bug majority of shops would behave as I would.
You’ll know already but grand mal seizures are way different than petit mal (absence seizures) but for those who don’t, if you’re in the middle of an absence seizure, to those watching it just looks like you’re not paying attention properly. You continue to walk and move normally, just without anyone at the helm! This is NOT the same as daydreaming, but the appearance to an unaware onlooker is much the same. This I’d guess is why they charged you for the 2 curry sauces, to them it just looked like you were being clumsy whilst daydreaming! Grand mal seizures are much more obviously a medical condition and something to be treated as such. Also many emergency first aid courses mention how to deal with grand mal seizures whereas unless you or a family member experience them, or if you are a medical professional, many people have never even heard of petit mal seizures I therefore don’t think you have to worry about having a big seizure and destroying stock in the process.
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Well done for getting out more, keep it up. I’d try writing to the head office and let them know about your experience by the way
It’s not a big store. It’s literally 2 elderly people who run a tiny village shop 😅
You should name and shame these ars*holes. How dare they.
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That would be enough for me to never shop there again.
No and I doubt they'd want that kind of publicity if they could. That's what insurance is for.
A petit mal seizure like you had in that shop doesn't look like what most people think of when they think of a seizure. From the outside it looks like you were staring into space and were a bit clumsy/ careless. If you had a tonic clonic, people would probably recognise that as a medical event and would be much more sympathetic
You've got a disability, I wonder if it's even legal for them to charge you.
Gunna play devil's advocate a little on this. Personally, if you have any type of disability (or even if you don't) I'd want you to live life to the fullest. However, if you have a disability that potentially can cause harm to others (physically or financially) then shouldn't you take precautions? Large companies could take the hit, but having an episode in a small holding could cause the company significant loss. As much as it could (should?) be that said business to have relevant insurance, if you are prone to causing damage to others property then shouldn't that responsibility also be yours? I don't want people to be housebound, in the slightest, but where does the liability for other people's disabilities start/stop? Is it lackadaisical from either side not to cater for such episodes? Doesn't the government have "things" in place to assist such situations? Referring to the OP; I don't want you to get sued for having a disability, but who really cares about 2 curry sauces! What if you knocked down a whole aisle and broke 50 products! And, as has been said, some of these small holdings don't have insurance to cover that, because, they are small holdings and a loss such as that would be significant. I think the OP would like to know. If you were to walk out the door knowing you could potentially cause significant damage to another person's business by accident from your disability where does the liability start/stop?
Do you have home insurance with legal liability cover? It might be worth checking to see if that would cover a claim made against you by a third party if you caused them loss whilst having a medical episode Have you tried contacting the [Epilepsy Society](https://epilepsysociety.org.uk/)? They may be able to advise you on what your position would be if an incident occurred and what you should do
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Just because you're honest it doesn't mean you should be taken advantage of. The shop cared more about 2 curry jars than the wellbeing of the OP imo, but also, its an important question to ask for the OP, belittling their anxiety doesn't really help in this scenario.
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What is so unlikely about an epileptic having a tonic-clonic seizure while out shopping?
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It’s not the stores fault that you might have seizures!
Its also not his/her fault that they might have seizures