Best Buy customer sues after being clobbered by falling TV
By Donald Melanson 
posted October 2nd 2007 3:33PM
posted October 2nd 2007 3:33PM
It looks like Texas Best Buy customer Sam Fisher recently found himself at the center of a slightly more perilous problem than a dubious intranet site, when an employee at the store accidentally dropped a 27-inch from the top shelf straight onto his head. Unsurprisingly, the man (no doubt already under distress from a barrage of "Where's your goggles?" jokes) is now suing Best Buy for gross negligence, although not the individual employee, who he says was simply following the store's policies. According to TG Daily, Fisher is alleging that Best Buy did not provide the proper training or necessary safety warnings, and that it has no official procedure for getting items down off a high shelf. As a result, he's seeking "exemplary damages" for Best Buy's "willful, wanton, and reckless disregard for the safety and welfare of its customers," although it's not been revealed exactly how exemplary those damages might be.
hopefully this will result in bestbuy cutting prices =-)
oh and i hope the guy is alright
thats kinda doubtful...i would think prices would go up in the event of a multimillion dollar lawsuit (plus lawyers fees)...and im betting this guy has this suit in the bag.
who shops at best buy anyway? i dont think i have ever purchased anything from there...or curcuit city...
Me too.....But he had it coming. People have been saying for years that too much TV is bad for your health.
Guys sounds like a head case anyway.
Padump chink!
Thank you thank you! I'm here all week!
If anything, this will cause prices to go UP as they will have to re-train every idiot who works there in proper safety procedures, not to mention all the stuff that OSHA is going to slap them with.
Thank your God that I don't shop there.
amen to that. best buys prices are horrible.
also, did anybody else think that it was funny that the employee said he was following policy? like dropping TVs on customers is standard procedure for best buy workers?
Knowing Best Buy they will try to somehow put the blame on the victim saying that his head attracts metal or some stupid excuse.
Ive had Best Buy crash my Ford F-150 into one of their Geek Squad VW's once. They were installing a DVD player in my truck and the idiot took off the emergency brake so it rolled out of their garage, down the parking lot, over a curb, and onto the Geek Squad beetle. It was great. They tried to blame it on me even though I wasnt even at the store when it happened.
Knowing Best Buy they will try to somehow put the blame on the victim saying that his head attracts metal or some stupid excuse.
Ive had Best Buy crash my Ford F-150 into one of their Geek Squad VW's once. They were installing a DVD player in my truck and the idiot took off the emergency brake so it rolled out of their garage, down the parking lot, over a curb, and onto the Geek Squad beetle. It was great. They tried to blame it on me even though I wasnt even at the store when it happened.
This case definitely sounds like it'll end-up in a out-of-court settlement, likely at the behest of Best Buy's insurance company.
@ Derbeste...that was freaking hillarious! I couldn't stop laughing in my cube for like 5 minutes (no kidding!).
@Derbeste and @Djunior80 I also was laughing my ass off in my cube after reading Derbeste's comments.
Watch Best Buy lawyers obtaining, as part of the settlement, IP rights to any new brilliant idea he might have as a result of the brain damage.
This sounds like something out of an "Itchy & Scratchy" skit, only if Scratchy was a Circuit City employee
Speaking of animation....
Wile E. Coyote could take a lesson or two from this Best Buy employee.
That's what he gets for being a master of stealth, nobody noticed him when they decided to drop that TV there.
Sam Fisher must have a splinter headache by now. Game Over
Why would he sue the employee? This is why businesses carry insurance- even if it's not directly anyone's fault the store should be insured against extraordinary accidents. The way the summary is written makes it sound like you're talking about one of those "lawsuit crazy americans" type stories, but the dude had a whole TV dropped on his head. That's like... the real deal.
I feel sorry for this guy. His reasoning for the suit is wrong. Best Buy SOP states that for any tv over 20 inches you must use their lift "big joe" to retrieve it. Hes gunna lose the suit over this.
What the hell are you talking about?
His decision to put himself in harms way by standing under the TV as it's being lowered, suggests he wasn't okay long before the TV ever hit him on the head..
ya, I used to work at best buy and they have plenty of training for that kind of stuff, including hours of videos. I don't know where he's getting his info but I think the only real suit he has is against the employee since he wasn't following the SOP... unless he was and it was a problem in the SOP and the guy can show that.
It doesn't matter if the employee was following SOP or not; the store is responsible for the conduct of its employees. If the employee was acting negligently, then that is imputed to the store, because the store has the duty to make sure its employees act with reasonable care.
The customer is under no obligation to be mindful of where he is standing. It is the BB employee's job to say to the customer, "Better move out of the way." IANAL, but it would seem as if this customer had done nothing wrong, and it is the responsibility of the employees to ensure the safety of the consumer.
Ben, His lawsuit is based upon best buy not training its employees to properly take down the tv. His lawsuit is not on the fact that it just fell on him. Yes best buy is at fault for having the employee drop it on him but they have properly trained their employee. My point is that on the basis of his argument he will lose the case.
If he were properly trained, then why was he taking down a tv over 27 inches without the help of the lift?
You're right, brien. There is a Standard Operating Procedure for unloading TVs off of the top stock shelving, and the mobile hydraulic lift "Big Joe" is required for all but the smallest objects on top stock. I'm not sure of this case's details, but his claim that there is no procedure for unloading these TVs is straight up incorrect. They drill it into employees constantly. The question is whether or not this Best Buy employee followed that procedure.
It was most likely just an regular, run-of-the-mill accident, but because Best Buy is big corporation and as such, a big target, this'll most likely get settled out of court for his medical bills and call it even.
I love how people are so quick to slander the big evil corporation and spend no time questioning what exactly happened. People don't want the truth, they want what fits their own perceptions.
You're right that SOP dictates, that, but it also dictates that we (BBY employee here) have to warn people to keep clear of the Big Joe while we're upstocking/downstocking. Presuming that all the facts presented are straight, the employee was being negligent of Best Buy policy, making the issue at hand both his/her and the corporation's responsibility. The plaintiff has a right to sue, although I hope that BBY will do the right thing and give him a settlement out of court.
Things like this have happened at home depot and other places w/ worse outcomes.
i dunno somehow "top shelf" and "texas" in the same paragraph don't really mix. does it?
but then i'm from pot smoking hot tub full of wine and guys kissing each other california.
...?
> i dunno somehow "top shelf" and "texas" in the
> same paragraph don't really mix. does it?
Actually is does mix... it's called a margarita.
I was thinking more along the lines of "sunbaked, burn-out, lame, homophobes in jeeps" but.. maybe that's just me.
@Prokanda wrong state...You're thinking of souther california, obviously Motoxo is talking about northern california.
@prokanda
Texaphobe!
Sam Fisher? The jokes are almost...TOO obvious...
Yeah I really feel sorry for people who share names with characters from pop culture. I feel especially sorry for anyone named "Harry Potter".
...Or Michael Bolton for that matter. :)
man that name reminds me of Office Space. What a great movie.....
I worked at Best Buy many years ago. If it's anything now like it was then, this guy is absolutely right. Untrained employees scrambling around on 4-high stacks of television-boxes, computers being dropped down to employees on the ground, and customers in the aisles with all of this happening are all standard-operating-procedure at Best Buy.
We had TVs fall from the high shelf on more than one occasion. Some of them rather large projection TVs.
I can attest to this as well. Dropping computers from the top shelves down to other employees was quite common when restocking the shelves at night.
Although, most large TVs were brought down with the powered lift. I could still see someone dropping the television up top though.
Though dropping boxes from the top shelves is common in the stores you worked in, does not mean that is policy. The company clearly has a policy that everyone is issued upon day one and is also refreshed through regular trainings throughout the year AND can be read anytime via the company's intranet that you are to use the correct tools and equipment to retrieve a product from top stock. It points out the correct process to use in each situation. It also mentions the harm that could be brought to others if the procedures are not followed.
This dumb kid who failed to follow stated policy should be held liable. But I doubt he has millions of dollars to pay off a dumb customer who had to remain underneath to ensure the employee retrieved the exact box he wanted.
For every stupid retail employee there are at least 10 customers with lower intelligence.
Nobody's asked the really important question...
Was it an LCD or a CRT? Because if it was a CRT, I think he'd be squished and in no state to sue...
Does anyone BUY CRTs these days? :S
Sam Fisher? I'm suprised he didnt see it coming with his night vision goggles. Nerd reference, WHOO YEAH!
He should have taken off his night vision goggles instead. Using night vision while there's plenty of lighting can be blinding!
Easy with the racist onomatopoeia. Stick with *rimshot* next time you need to draw attention to your pun ;)
If he's a Christian he should forgive, and move on.
Ah, but being American takes precendence over Christianity, and Americans sue. That's how we roll here in the US of A.
Christians don't have a monopoly on forgiveness.
I don't buy that...I forgive people...not corporations...
Yes because the Christians were so forgiving in the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition.
Damn Christians don't half spout some crap.