Well, the case law on grocery stores is interesting. I did a little bit of research into it a while back. It seems like, in most cases, the store may not be responsible for anything a cart might possibly do, *unless* it is negligent. Say they don't send anyone out to collect carts for four hours on a busy shopping day, and there are carts all over the place, and one runs into a car. That would be an example of negligence, and the store could be held liable for the damage to the car.
I know a few people that have taken it to court. One was a guy in Dallas with a 70 chevelle that he just had painted... Cart ran into it right into the grille and headlight housing. There was something said about removing them every so many hours but that didn't fly with the judge. The hour thing is BS, they want to claim that if the damage occurred a 3:59 minutes they won't pay but if it occurred at 4:01 they will. There is no difference the damage happened either way. You can retrieve carts constantly and still have damage occur.
IMO make all stores like Aldis.. Charge a rental fee on the carts like the airports do. They are going to build some here and I have no problem picking up stray carts in the parking lot and pushing them into the cart return for a quarter. Need the exercise and I get paid to do it.
Like many things, "It depends," but the store cannot simply avoid any and all liability for all time by just putting up a sign. If you somehow cause damage through negligence, all the signs in the world cannot save you from liability.
You can get away with negligence with waivers but you can't get away from gross negligence as that voids all agreements, signs, contracts etc etc...
Robert Adams
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