Texas Supreme Court Issues Workplace Safety Opinion

This morning, the Texas Supreme Court reversed trial court and Tenth Court of Appeals findings that Kroger was liable for injuries one of its employees sustained while helping a customer load grocery bags into her car. The employee in question had placed one hand on the customer’s car door jamb while steadying the cart with his foot when the customer slammed her car door on his hand (the parking lot was on a slope, hence the foot-steadying).

Kroger is a non-subscriber to workers’ compensation insurance, which means that injured employees must establish that some negligence on their employer’s behalf cause their injuries to recover damages; in other words, “[nonsubscribing] employers are not insurers of their employees.”

In this case, the Supreme Court found that since grocery customers throughout the nation seem competent to load groceries into cars, Kroger had no obligation to provide its clerks with specialized training in the art. Using an unusual grocery-loading methodology like the one described here constitutes “a danger known to all,” so Kroger had no duty to warn its employees not to attempt such maneuvers. The Court therefore reversed decisions by both the trial court and court of appeals, based on its no-duty finding.

Kroger v. Elwood, Cause No. 04-1133

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