Inset: Saiy-Yah Allen (Royal Funeral Service, Inc.). Background: Saiy-Yah died years after hitting his head on a cart in a Walmart in Florida (WTVJ).
A Florida mother is taking legal action against Walmart, alleging that the megastore’s negligence led to the death of her 9-year-old son years after he suffered a head injury by hitting a metal cart in one of their stores.
Tamika Springer is seeking damages beyond $30,000 in the death of her son, Saiy-Yah Allen, according to the complaint.
Testifying in court, the boy’s sister described the seizures he experienced in the following years after the incident at a Fort Lauderdale Walmart in November 2020. At the age of 7, he walked into a metal stock cart, hitting his head on the walkway.
“He would shake, look in different directions, shake, and make noises. Additionally, every time he ate, he would vomit or have accidents,” explained Miharah Allen, the boy’s sister.
The testimony came as Walmart attorneys questioned whether his injury then led to his seizures and death on May 7, 2023, local NBC affiliate WTVJ reported.
A media representative for Walmart did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Law&Crime. The company said in court documents the boy was not looking where he was going when he walked into the cart.
“Walmart is not liable for the incident as the stock cart was so open and obvious that S.A. should have been reasonably expected to discover it and protect himself (by simply walking around it), and a stock cart is so obvious and not inherently dangerous that it can be said, as a matter of law, not to constitute a dangerous condition that will not give rise to liability due to the failure to maintain the premises in a reasonably safe condition,” the defendant’s motion for summary judgment said. “Here, unfortunately, S.A. was inattentive and failed to walk around a stock cart’s handles that were observed by his sister, who was not walking with her head turned. S.A. failed to use his senses and was walking while looking backward, therefore he did not observe the open, obvious, and innocuous stock cart.”
Saiy-Yah’s obituary said he loved to draw, paint and make origami.
“He often made origami birds and drawings for our friends and even random people he came in contact with. His eyes and smile lit the entire universe! He did everything with the utmost pride and precision. We all told him how brilliant and genius he is and how his talents will only get greater.”
