There is a special law concerning trip and falls in stores. LSA R.S. 9:2800.6, the merchant’s statute, provides that a person injured by a tripping accident in a store has the burden to prove that the condition causing the fall presented an unreasonable and foreseeable risk of harm to the customer; that the merchant either created or had constructive notice of the condition; and that the merchant failed to exercise reasonable care. The law defines constructive notice in the statute as meaning that the condition existed for such a period of time that it would have been discovered if the merchant had exercised reasonable care.
If a claimant has carried their burden, the store then has to come forward with proof of reasonable care.  The definition of merchant in the statute excludes certain claims from the strict provisions of the statute, such as stepping on a tomato in the parking lot outside the store; or a puddle of transmission fluid at an automobile auction lot; and the shopping center landowner was not a merchant as to plaintiff who slipped on the ice in the shopping center parking lot.