Can I sue if I slip and fall at Albertsons?

By Michael Shemtoub, trial attorney, Beverly Law. Updated November 2026.

Beverly Law is not affiliated with Albertsons. The store counts, contacts and cases below come from the company’s filings and website and from published court opinions.

Albertsons stores in California, Texas and Washington

Albertsons is both a store name and the name of the parent company. Albertsons Companies, Inc. is incorporated in Delaware, has its main offices in Boise, Idaho, and operated 2,244 stores in 35 states and the District of Columbia as of February 28, 2026, under banners that include Albertsons, Safeway, Vons, Pavilions, Randalls, Tom Thumb, United Supermarkets, Market Street and Haggen (Albertsons 10-K). The store-name directory lists 360 Albertsons locations in 16 states (directory).

Why this matters: the sign over the door may say Safeway, Tom Thumb or Randalls, but the company defending the case can still be an Albertsons entity. In the Texas case below, the store was a Randalls and the defendant was Albertsons, LLC.

A Washington Albertsons case: the leaking roof

Wiltse v. Albertson’s Inc. (1991) is a Washington Supreme Court decision that still shapes store cases there. A shopper slipped in water that had dripped through a hole in the store’s roof, shortly after 7 p.m. on November 28, 1982. The store manager had walked past the spot minutes earlier and seen nothing, and he testified that, as far as he knew, no one at the store knew about the leak.

The shopper asked the trial court to tell the jury he did not have to prove notice, under the exception for self-service stores recognized in Pimentel v. Roundup Co. (1983). The court refused and gave the usual notice instruction. The Supreme Court agreed with the trial court, holding that Pimentel is “a limited rule for self-service operations, not a per se rule,” and that “[r]isk of water dripping from a leaky roof is not inherent in a store’s mode of operation.” Four justices dissented.

The point for a Washington shopper today: the exception can help when the hazard comes from how the store sells its goods, such as produce or liquids customers handle. It is much harder to use for a hazard the store’s business model did not create.

A Texas Albertsons case: the leaking shopping cart

In Albertsons, LLC d/b/a Randall’s v. Mohammadi (Tex. 2024), a woman slipped next to a shopping cart near the front of a Houston Randalls. The cart held returned or damaged items, and she claimed an employee had put leaking items in it. The store video was unclear. The jury found the store did not have constructive knowledge of the wet floor, and the trial court entered judgment for the store. The court of appeals reversed because the jury had not been asked about actual knowledge.

The Texas Supreme Court reinstated the store’s judgment. It held any error was harmless because there was no evidence the store actually knew about the wet floor, and it said “the wet floor, not the antecedent situation that produced it, is the relevant danger.” It also declined to extend an older Safeway case on store displays to these facts, because nothing showed a policy or practice of leaving leaky bags in carts.

For a Texas shopper, that means proof that an employee set up the situation that later caused a spill is generally not enough. The case has to show the store knew of the puddle itself, or that it was there long enough that the store should have found it (Wal-Mart Stores v. Reece (Tex. 2002)). Texas cases are handled by the firm’s Texas-licensed attorneys, Joyce Ondich and John Efstathiou.

How the same fall plays out in each state

The deadlines have exceptions, including much shorter ones for public property; see slip and fall deadline. State pages for large-store falls are here for Texas and Washington.

Telling Albertsons what happened

Report the fall to the manager on duty before you leave the store if you can. Albertsons’ website lists a toll-free Customer Support Center at 1-877-258-2799 for account, order and delivery questions (Albertsons for U FAQ); the same number appears on its sister banners’ sites, but it is not described as an injury line.

When you talk to the manager, keep it short and factual. Say where you fell and what you saw on the floor. Ask whether the store is writing an incident report and get its number. Ask whether a camera points at that spot. Then let a lawyer ask in writing for the footage, the floor-check records and the names of the employees on shift. Both cases above turned on what the store knew and when, and that proof sits in the store’s own systems. Our slip and fall evidence page lists what to request, and what to do after a slip and fall covers the first days.

What this means for your case

Start by naming the state, the store and the hazard. In Washington, ask whether the hazard came from how the store sells or displays goods. In Texas, ask what shows how long the hazard was there or that an employee saw it. In California, ask when the area was last inspected. If nobody saw the spill, read slip and fall with no witnesses. More answers are in our injury FAQs.

Common questions

Related pages

Injury law FAQs

Important: This page is general information, not legal or medical advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every case is different; talk to a lawyer about yours. Texas cases are handled by the firm’s Texas-licensed attorneys, Joyce Ondich and John Efstathiou. Last reviewed: November 7, 2026.