Is supermarket responsible if a taken shopping trolley causes accident?

odckdo

A housing estate is near a supermarket. Some residents use a trolley to carry their groceries home but most of them are never returned. Other residents in the estate ring the supermarket to ask them to collect the trolleys left outside their house but sometimes it is nearly 2 weeks before this happens. Feel sorry for a supermarket employee who may have to push 10+ trolleys from the bottom of the estate up a hill.

What happens if a trolley is involved in an accident? For example sometimes kids jump into the trolley while they are pushed down a hill - kid gets injured falling out, trolley hits a moving car, driver hurt or car damaged?

Also what happens if a trolley is involved in an incident that damages private property? For example car parked in driveway.

Are the supermarket liable at all, especially since they have been reminded about this for years?

How do other supermarkets prevent shoppers from taking a trolley home?

brian_t

odckdo wrote: »

Some residents use a trolley to carry their groceries home but most of them are never returned.

What happens if a trolley is involved in an accident?

Would the residents who steal the trollies not be more liable.

I think that Lidl have something on their trollies that disable them if they are pushed beyond their entrance.

WoollyRedHat

You should have to pay a proper deposit if you want to use one. I've seen young ones who definitely shouldn't have one off their trolleys one a.Friday night.

FishOnABike

If this is more than a hypothetical question you should talk to a solicitor who, informed of all the facts, should be able to advise if there may be an element of contributory negligence and whether it is worth pursuing.

odckdo

brian_t wrote:

Would the residents who steal the trollies not be more liable.

Maybe. I don't know.

I just feel the supermarket could do more to prevent their customers doing this. Maybe they don't want to do anything in case they lose their custom.

Customers have to push the trolleys a fair distance to get out of the car park. There is not even a sign at the exit warning them. Supermarket could even do a spot check during the day. Plus multiple trolleys left for days in an estate is only asking for trouble.

Surely a supermarket has to have more responsibility in this case?

ThisRegard

brian_t wrote: »

I think that Lidl have something on their trollies that disable them if they are pushed beyond their entrance.

Our local one certainly doesn't.

odckdo

FishOnABike wrote:

If this is more than a hypothetical question you should talk to a solicitor who, informed of all the facts, should be able to advise if there may be an element of contributory negligence and whether it is worth pursuing.

Just wanted to see what people thoughts are and if anyone had any experience of it.

Thinking of sending an email to the supermarket to inform them and ask them to improve trolley management.

If the person taking the trolley home is definitely responsible and not the supermarket then that would change the content of the email.

It's one of these things that has been going on for years that I feels needs to be addressed.

foggy_lad

Are the supermarket not responsible because they allow the shoppers to take the trolleys home and then fail to recover their property in a timely manner when informed of its whereabouts?

Sala

I don't know who'd be liable but I'm curious to know how much a trolley costs them, if they go missing like that. I know it's only a trolley but there's something horrible about trolleys outside supermarkets, they make the area look dirty. Maybe inform the supermarket and say you'll report them- is leaving trolleys around littering? Or something similar ?

JohnBee

foggy_lad wrote: »

Are the supermarket not responsible because they allow the shoppers to take the trolleys home and then fail to recover their property in a timely manner when informed of its whereabouts?

"Allows them"? Sounds more like locals stealing trolleys to me.

odckdo

JohnBee wrote:

"Allows them"? Sounds more like locals stealing trolleys to me.

Well, that's a good point.

Some customers have a massive load of groceries, others are pure lazy with one small bag that they could carry easily.

But they all have to push a trolley a long distance through an open car park, past the supermarket's petrol station on to the path of a public road. The staff in the petrol station (when not busy) have a clear view of people passing. They even have a speaker system to talk to people at the pumps which they could use.

How much would a full trolley of groceries be worth to the supermarket?

So is the customer "stealing" a trolley to bring groceries home or is the supermarket "allowing" it?

Losty Dublin

A supermarket near me was plagued with shoppers stealing/bringing home shopping in their trolley's. At one stage they employed an attendant to take €20 deposits off shoppers; they still continued to steal/bring them home.

laotg

This is ridiculous. So if I take/steal a block from a building site and throw it through a window should the builder be responsible? Of course not.

Soft inda Head

Trolleys are intended for use by customers within the supermarket and the attached carpark. I'd imagine damage or injury caused by a trolley outside of these confines couldn't be attributed to a supermarket.

pedroeibar1

Many years ago when a Pat Quinn supermarket opened in a well-known Dublin suburb their original stock of trolleys was stolen within two months. As were the "kiddyrides", the coin-operated see-saws, etc. The trolleys apparently were a favourite of the pigeon men, cut up they were perfect roosting trays. The see-saws were hot wired and left operating in certain communal areas.
Most, if not all supermarkets have notices stating that trolleys should not be removed from the premises. Lidl and many others have gratings at carpark exits into which the grooved wheels of the trolleys sink. The supermarket is not allowing anything, taking them requires manual effort to overide security and is "stealing".

odckdo

OK I can see how the person taking the trolley has the main responsibility but surely a supermarket needs to have the best system in place to reduce the number removed e.g. like the example above about Lidl and the gratings at the exit. At the moment it is way to easy to take a trolley from this particular supermarket.

Also if a supermarket gets a number of phonecalls from residents to collect multiple trolleys but takes nearly 2 weeks to do so, does some of the blame not lie with the supermarket as they are slow in reacting?

I think the supermarket in question has to prevent more trolleys from being removed. That is their responsibility. They have to take some of the blame the way things are at the moment.

Gatling

Rather than emailing the retailer ,contact the local litter warden he'll contact the retailer and can issue fines for every trolley they find

jluv

Gatling wrote: »

Rather than emailing the retailer ,contact the local litter warden he'll contact the retailer and can issue fines for every trolley they find

Exactly! Retailers cannot be responsible for people taking trolleys home,despite putting a euro deposit on said trolley.
However if some not nice person does take it home. then contact the litter warden. They are normally quite good to retailers who co-operate. Will give you an hour to pick it up with no fine..

FishOnABike

Soft inda Head wrote: »

Trolleys are intended for use by customers within the supermarket and the attached carpark. I'd imagine damage or injury caused by a trolley outside of these confines couldn't be attributed to a supermarket.

It could also be argued that

it is reasonably foreseeable that a trolley taken from the supermarket could cause an accident / injury / damage.

the supermarket has been negligent by not making use of devices commonly used by other supermarkets to prevent removal of trollies.

the supermarket has been negligent by not recovering removed trollies in a timely manner when it has been notified of taken / abandoned trollies in the area.

While those messing messing with the trollies (or their parents) might be seen to be directly liable it might be reasonable to consider that the supermarket has contributed in some way by it's failure to secure and / or recover trollies over an extended period.

Peregrinus

In general, if somebody steals something from you and then handles it carelessly with the result that someone else is injured, you are not liable for the injury. I don't see that supermarket trolleys form a special class of stolen things for which a different rule would apply.

I get that the supermarket has been notified of the theft and abandonment of the trolley and can see that there is some possibility that it may be used in a way that leads to an accident. But of course the person who rang the supermarket and notified them has the same knowledge and can also see that there is some possibility that the trolley may be used in a way that leads to an accident. If reasonable forseeability is the test of liability, should they be liable for their failure to take steps to avert this risk (by, e.g, ringing the litter warden, or simply taking the trolley into their own back garden)?

From the point of view of good community relationships the supermarket should either be installing grids or other measures to impede the theft of trolleys, or become more active in recovering stray trolleys. But I think injury resulting from misuse of a stolen trolley is just too remote for the original owner of the trolley to be fixed with legal liability.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

Peregrinus

It's not as though people are stealing guns, or something inherently dangerous, and you are doing nothing to secure them. A car is capable of doing much more damage than a supermarket trolley, but if you are careless and somebody steals your car - you forgot to lock it, say, or you left the keys in an easily-accessible place - nobody suggests that you are liable for any injury done by the later careless use of the car.

Dial Hard

Is trolley-stealing really that commonplace? I can honestly say I've never, ever seen someone leave a supermarket car park with one.

Fred Swanson

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odckdo

Peregrinus wrote:

In general, if somebody steals something from you and then handles it carelessly with the result that someone else is injured, you are not liable for the injury. I don't see that supermarket trolleys form a special class of stolen things for which a different rule would apply.

I think partly what might be happening is that customers are "stealing" trolleys but the supermarket are not that bothered in being proactive as each trolley full of groceries represents profit. 10+ trolleys a day - how much does that add up to in a week?

I suppose a supermarket can say they have a warning sign up. But like the brick example earlier, its not really the builders fault but surely a builder has a responsibility to the local community to ensure the bricks are secured in the best possible way to prevent or reduce further incidents? If the builder doesn't what happens then?

In my estate as the customer gets close to their home they will then strategically place the trolley away from their house near someone else's house.

People ring supermarket to tell them to retrieve trolley. Supermarket in no rush collects 1-2 weeks later.

Some lad drunk on his way home decides to have a bit of fun with a trolley he "found". He didn't "steal" it. Yes this guy is guilty for the damage but if only the supermarket were quicker my car wouldn't been wrecked for example.

I feel where I live it's like a number of issues, people aren't bothered unless something serious happens like kids using a trolley as a skateboard down a steep hill and there's an accident.

seamus

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

It's pretty irrelevant, theft is theft.

It's a bit like saying that if I leave the keys in the ignition of my car and some guy comes along and takes it, I'm liable for any injuries caused because I did nothing to prevent the theft.

Is trolley-stealing really that commonplace? I can honestly say I've never, ever seen someone leave a supermarket car park with one.

It would be common in very specific areas where they send their ten year olds out to do the weekly shop, or where they simply don't have enough money to afford to run a car, but still need a big trolley of stuff.
I can also think of a couple of estates where the walk to the shop is about 50m across some paths, but to drive in would actually take close to ten minutes by the time you fought through one-way systems and traffic. So I can see how bringing the trolley home would be preferable.

Back in my scouting days it was the responsibility of a patrol leader to sort out the shopping for his patrol (anywhere between 6 and 10 kids) on camping trips.
You'd arrive at the shops on your bike, but you had a trolley load of stuff to bring, so you'd push the trolley home. We always brought it back though.

Claw Hammer

Peregrinus wrote: »

But of course the person who rang the supermarket and notified them has the same knowledge and can also see that there is some possibility that the trolley may be used in a way that leads to an accident. If reasonable forseeability is the test of liability, should they be liable for their failure to take steps to avert this risk (by, e.g, ringing the litter warden, or simply taking the trolley into their own back garden)?

The person ringing the Supermarket has no proprieary interest in the trolley. The Supermarket does! There is no duty of rescue in tort. The person who sees the trolley has not contributed to the situation by an act or omission.