Can I sue if I slip and fall at Safeway?

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

Beverly Law is not affiliated with Safeway. Store counts and contacts come from Safeway’s and its parent company’s own sites and filings; the cases come from court opinions.

Where Safeway operates

Safeway’s own directory lists 914 Safeway stores in 17 states and the District of Columbia (Safeway directory, viewed November 2026). Two of the firm’s three states are on that list:

• California: 241 Safeway locations, in cities such as Oakland, Sacramento, San Jose, Eureka and South Lake Tahoe (California list).
• Washington: 191 Safeway locations, including Seattle, Bellevue, Spokane, Tacoma, Vancouver and Yakima (Washington list).
• Texas: not on Safeway’s state list. The parent company runs Texas stores under other names: the Randalls directory shows 25 Texas locations, in the Houston and Austin areas (Randalls), and the Tom Thumb directory shows 70, in cities including Dallas, Fort Worth and Plano (Tom Thumb).

Safeway and Albertsons completed their merger on January 30, 2015 (merger release). The parent, Albertsons Companies, Inc., is based in Boise, Idaho, and reports 214 stores in Washington and 584 in California across all its banners as of February 28, 2026 (Albertsons 10-K).

Two Washington Safeway appeals

Washington requires a shopper to show the store had actual or constructive notice of a hazard it did not create, unless the store’s way of doing business made that hazard reasonably foreseeable (Pimentel v. Roundup Co. (1983)). Two unpublished Court of Appeals decisions involving Safeway show how that plays out.

Gores v. Safeway (2014). A shopper at a Bellevue Safeway slipped on egg whites in the dairy aisle after picking up a carton of eggs, and an orthopedist later found torn menisci in both knees. The court affirmed summary judgment for Safeway. It held the shopper had not shown notice, and it said “allowing customers to pick up their own cartons of eggs is different from setting up a self-serve soup station.” It also rejected an argument about lost evidence: none of the cameras covered the spot, and Safeway “had no duty to keep the handwritten logs, which were merely temporary assignment sheets” (opinion).

Sullivan v. Safeway (2015). A shopper at an Everett Safeway slipped on liquid soap another customer had spilled. Store video showed a customer reporting the spill at 12:56, the shopper entering the aisle about 30 seconds later, and an employee heading to the aisle with cleaning supplies about 30 seconds after that. The court held that, given the low risk in that aisle, “Safeway’s practice of two inspections per hour” was enough to satisfy its duty of care as a matter of law, and it affirmed summary judgment (opinion).

These decisions are unpublished, so they have no precedential value and are not binding, though opinions filed on or after March 1, 2013 may be cited as nonbinding authority (GR 14.1). Read together, they point to the same questions: where exactly the cameras point, how often employees walk the aisle, what the store writes down, and how long the spill sat before the fall. Our Washington store fall page covers later Washington Supreme Court rulings on the foreseeability exception.

Two California Safeway cases

Bridgman v. Safeway Stores (1960) arose from a shopper who said pumpkins fell from a display and knocked her down; Safeway’s employees testified she told them she slipped and grabbed at the display, knocking the pumpkins over. The jury ruled for Safeway, and the California Supreme Court affirmed. Along the way it said a store owner “must make reasonable inspections of such portions of his premises as are open to his customers,” and that in a self-service store “the exercise of ordinary care may require the owner to take greater precautions and make more frequent inspections.”

In Safeway Stores v. Nest-Kart (1978), a shopping cart broke and fell on a customer’s foot, and she needed surgery. The jury returned a $25,000 verdict against Safeway and the cart maker, found Safeway liable on both negligence and strict liability, and assigned 80% of the fault to Safeway and 20% to the manufacturer. The Supreme Court held that responsibility between a negligent defendant and a strictly liable one can be divided by comparative fault. The case is a reminder that store equipment, such as carts, can also be the basis of a claim.

What to ask Safeway for after a fall

Report the fall to the manager on duty. Safeway’s website lists a Customer Support Center at 1-877-258-2799 for account, order and delivery questions (Safeway for U FAQ); it is not presented as an injury line. Then, with a lawyer’s help, ask in writing for:

• Video from every camera that shows the spot, the aisle entrances and the 30 minutes before the fall
• Any sweep, floor-walk or assignment sheets for that area and shift, before they are discarded
• The time the spill was first reported, by a customer or an employee, and who responded
• Photos employees took and the incident report

Gores shows why the paper logs should be requested early, and Sullivan shows how much a time-stamped video can reveal. Our slip and fall evidence page explains how each item is used.

Deadlines and fault in each state

Texas cases are handled by the firm’s Texas-licensed attorneys, Joyce Ondich and John Efstathiou. Exceptions to these deadlines are on our slip and fall deadline page.

What this means for your case

A Safeway claim in Washington can come down to minutes: when the spill happened, when it was reported, and when someone last walked the aisle. Write down the time you fell and anything you heard employees say. If no one saw the spill, our page on slip and fall with no witnesses explains other ways to prove it, and what to do after a slip and fall covers the first week. 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.