A healthy adult should be able to pick themselves off the floor, go yell at the manager, and maybe write kohls a nasty email about thier carts.
But we're not talking about a healthy adult. We're talking about a 74 year old woman. Who sustained injuries as a result of the fall.
Carts are not substitutes for walkers.
Anyone dumb enough to try and use one for a support aid, deserves what's coming to them. Including 74 year old retired social workers. I guaran-fracking-tee you she was leaning on it.
You control YOURSELF, and then you put any extra motive power you have... into the cart.
If you can't control yourself, you get a walker, with the little tennis balls on the bottom, and a little basket in the front. Not a shopping cart.
Heck, Kohl's even has the stupid electric fat-person carts like walmart has. She could have responsibly gauged her capability with the cart and gotten onto the electric shopping cart.
The defense lawyer should be ashamed of himself for losing this case.
Just drove by a Kohl's last night... and I noticed there isn't a single cart-corral anywhere in the parking lot. The carts are not stored outside the store, they are stored inside.
Kohl's does not intend for people to use the carts outside the store. They are a means to gather purchases inside the store, and are not intended for parking lot use. This is also evidenced by the fabric baskets, which will deteriorate from sun and water exposure. I'd be interested to see if any warnings are printed on the handle of the cart. "Don't lean on me." Or perhaps "Don't take me outside the store." Maybe I'll check next time I'm at Kohl's.
Y'all are forgetting the cardinal rule: Stupid is as stupid does. No matter what, it all HAS to boil down to personal responsibility. Otherwise we're doomed as a society.