A can of paint that you had just purchased at Wal Mart fell over on your back seat in the car and poured paint onto the seat. What would you do?

I think what Walmart is doing for you is appropriate. Sure, the can should have been sealed better, but it wasn’t their fault you placed the can on a seat where it could easily fall over. A more secure location for paint would be the floor or the trunk of the car.

If this happened to me I probably would have kicked myself for putting it on the seat and gone back to buy a new gallon. I would have placed the blame on myself. but that’s just me

MY HUSBAND DID IT!!! And what you’re saying is true, and I thought of that too. So…we’ll just go with that.

I would document everything. Take photos. Contact Wal-mart again (while it is still fresh) and say, “Look, that stain may not come out totally. If the car seat is also damaged, we may need to reupholster the seats. I am just letting you know that we may come back in a week when the seat is dry and we can assess the full damage. Your employee did not secure the lid properly before giving us the paint. Wal-mart is technically liable for the damage.” (Better yet, write it in a letter and send it registered mail.)

And just be honest about it. If the seat is awful, tell them they need to pay for reupholstery. If you can live with it and it doesn’t need replacing, then just let it go.

I think Walmart is completely at fault for not securing the lid properly and they are responsible for any damages incurred and restitution as well.

That said, good luck getting it if they decide to fight, unless you have a fleet of lawyers waiting to take up the battle as I am sure they do.

I think I would be as sweet as honey to the manager, even though I would be totally pissed inside, and see if you can convince him that your seats are forever ruined unless they are reupholstered or whatever.

@jonsblond – you are tooooooo nice, truly anyone handling paint should know how to secure a lid. Repeat after me, both of you, THIS IS NOT MY FAULT! There is no warning label on the can about not putting it on the seat of your car!

@rooeytoo…I agree with you.

I don’t think they will “fight” you not over a ruined seat. But as @rooeytoo said, be nice, but firm. How much would it take to reupholster something? Not that much (when Wal-Mart makes billions.)

Just because there is no warning label doesn’t excuse not using common sense guys…it’s not THAT bad. If the seat gets stiff I’m sure we could get them to assume responsibility but…well, we’ll see.

@DarlingRhadamanthus Well yeah. They make billions but that doesn’t mean you should try to take unfair advantage of it! Maybe would could bitch loud enough so they’ll buy us a new car!!

@Dutchess_III – You are a much more generous human than I :-) course that doesn’t take a whole hell of a lot! And I would be saying the same thing no matter if it is Walmart or the ma and pa paint store on the corner!

It is your fault. Next time you buy paint bring some bin to store it in. At the very least put it in a plastic bag.

I have to agree with @johnpowell. I think there is some shared responsibility here. I never would have put the can of paint on the back seat in the first place because I would be afraid that it might tip over and that’s exactly what happened. Once a can of paint is opened the lid just isn’t going to be as secure and tight as it was when it came from the factory. Yes, the guy at Walmart should have been more careful when he put the lid back on but they have agreed to have your seats cleaned and that seems reasonable.

I agree with you @lillycoyote.

”...obviously the guy didn’t get the lid securely closed…”

It’s obvious to me who’s fault it is then. I wouldn’t settle for anything less than insisting that the party at fault accept responsibility for their actions. I’ve transported lots of paint over the years. I’ve never had a secured lid come undone. If it’s one of those metal gallons, those things don’t come loose. Understand that they are made to be transported across the country and tossed around by loading docks. They are very secure, if they are secured.

Stiff paint stains on car seats will definitely lower the resale value of any automobile.

I had this very thing happen to a customer of mine who had a 5 gallon pail of grey epoxy tip and spill in the back of their Lexus SUV and we did end up paying for new carpeting for them My guy clearly didn’t hammer the lid securely and in the end it was our fault…but HS who transports industrial epoxy coatings in the back of a Lexus??? WTF!!!

Well, Rick just said it didn’t fall over. It was on the seat at an angle leaning against the back and it just sloshed out…that tells me the lid was seriously not secure. That puts it in a different light, IMO. Yeah, it WAS spilled down the back of the seat and it pooled under the can.

@Cruiser The kind of people who save their money and get rich by doing their own work instead of hiring out contractors!

I don’t know. It just seems like common sense to transport anything with a lid upright and secure to make sure it doesn’t tip over. Shampoo bottle or paint, shit happens.

Too nice, that’s me @rooeytoo. I can be a bitch when I really need to though. ;)

@Dutchess_III This was a contractor and he used his fancy personal car instead of a work truck. One of those crazy moments there is nothing you can do other than roll with the punches.

Whoa! That’s funny Cruiser!

Tell them $200 and you’ll call it good.

@Dutchess_III…..Please read what I wrote, okay? I said, “Be honest about it…” If the car seat is fine…then “let it go”...that’s what I wrote.

I never said take them to the cleaners I believe in compensation for damage, not in unethical or immoral practices.

All I meant is that it will be a pittance to have your seat reupholstered for them when they make that amount of money…basically, I think they will probably be open to pay you for the full damage. That’s all I meant.

Frankly, it is this sort of litigious attitude that I find off putting and believe to be a major contributing factor to several of our societal ills.

It is your vehicle, and what you put in it is your responsibility. Ok, so perhaps the store guy did not get the lid on as tight, but it is up to you to load the things in your vehicle so they don’t cause damage.

Frankly, if it were me I would have kicked my own ass for not checking that everything was secure and not putting the paint in a position where it would not slosh or tip over, and then I would have proceeded directly to a professional cleaner. The store would not have been involved at all.

Be happy they were gracious enough to pay for the cleaning and next time exercise a bit more caution when you are carting around something that has the potential to spill and damage your interior.

@DarlingRhadamanthus Thanks~I agree with you.

Guys…it almost sounds like it would have sloshed out even if it had been upright on the floorboard. The guy who closed it really hosed up. You know….when I was getting the paint originally, I waited for a while at the paint counter, then finally found someone to page someone to help me. Five minutes later, they paged him again. No response. The manager came up and started helping. A minute later the guy finally showed up. Without any apology he said he’d been on his “15,”—break I assume. But the way he looked at the manager and the way he said it, it was some law and he would have sued them had he been interrupted from it.
So then he finished up. When he was done he put the lid back on and put the sticker on it. I questioned the fact that he hadn’t put the “formula” for that color on the sticker, and it hadn’t automatically printed it out. He looked at it and said, “Looks like it always does to me.”
I said “They always put the formula on custom paint on the sticker, one way or another.”
He argued with me that it wasn’t necessary because he’d put a spot of paint on the sticker. I said, “So if I need another gallon of this color you’d scan it, or what?”
He said, “Well that’s why most people keep their color card.”
He was just a jerk from beginning to end. Not getting the lid on securely was just part and parcel of the whole thing.

We’ll see what Monday brings for our back seat.

Check with the car dealer and ask them to price out an original seat cover. If you can order that part it then should be easy to pull the damaged seat out of the car and put the new cover on. Compare that to a local auto upholsterer to show the store management.I have no idea which way would be cheaper.
I have never seen any Walmart employee act like dick to me ever come to think about it. So cudo’s to them for that. YMMV.

Hell @woodcutter…that’s because you never see a Walmart employee! They’re scarcer than hen’s teeth!

@jonsblond I got you mixed up with @johnpowell. I meant to agree with you, but I agree with him too, half of him anyway. I don’t think it was entirely Dutchess’ husband’s fault. And @jonsblond, I don’t think you are being too nice, you are just being fair, there’s a difference..

Tell them that your first child was conceived in that back seat and you want it fixed dammit!

Take what WM gave you and be thankful. They are a hard store to deal with.

Fluther never fails to amaze me, I thought all the Walmart haters would flock to this question and damn Walmart’s incompetence.

I like Walmart but I don’t like incompetence. If I had a paint store, I would not want an employee who is so inattentive to his job.

I often sit cans of paint on the seat of the car, if the lid was not put on properly and it spills would it be less my fault if it spilled on the floor and ruins the carpet instead of the seat?

Yeah, @rooetoo. We had a right to assume that the lid would be secure, but it wasn’t. That wasn’t our fault. Sure, they probably shouldn’t have been on the seat (not where I would have put them) but we certainly had no reason to expect it to just slop right out of the can! The lid was still on, when all was said and done. It probably would have slopped in the trunk or on the floor board too.

@john65pennington I think if we pushed it we could get the seats recovered. But…we’ll see if that’s necessary.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies PUULEASE!!! It’s an 05 Buick!! I’d been a gramma for 10 years by then!!!

If Walmart took the lid off to tint the paint for you and then didn’t hammer back in properly then it is 100% their fault. That tin of paint could have tumbled sideways on the floor and then you’d have paint all over the floor. I’ve bought 10s of cans of paint that have sometimes tumbled sideways and the lids has never popped off. What the point of a lid anyway?

Take pictures, make sure you write down the name of the employee who offered to pay for cleaning (acknowledgement of wrong doing), get quotes and go and talk to them again.

That sucks. What an unfortunate mishap. If that happened to my husband he would come home saying, “I know, I know, it could happen.” Because the joke in our house is I torture and nag him to take precautions for things that can go wrong, and he has been bred to think nothing will go wrong, or worse if you think something will go wrong it will. He has come to my way of thinking a little after 18 years of marriage.

If the stain is not competely out after trying twice, then I say go ahead an price a new seat. I am not saying for sure the store should pay for it, not sure where I stand, but maybe they will quickly pay half, or give you a couple hundred to make the ordeal go away. The top should be on tight, but I think it is also your responsibility to have the paint fairly secure. If it were me I would never put paint cans on a seat ever anyway. Even if it is secure, what if paint got on the bottom of the can while being mixed? I would never put a soy sauce bottle directly on a seat, or carpet, what if it broke? It would always at minimum be in a bag. I mean, anything could happen. ~

Oh, and the employee was a total jerk. I would definitely make sure he is named, and the entire experience you had is told to a manager. It is not only to complain, but also so they know, so if he continues to screw up they have record of his bad behavior.

@JLeslie You and your husband sound just like me and my husband:
(True story below)...
Me: “You might want to slow down in this fog. You don’t know what could be up there.”
Him: “Like what!” as if it isn’t possible for something to be hiding in the fog.
Me: “Like a wreck, or who knows.”
Him: “There’s not going to be a wreck up there!!”
Me: sigh.
60 seconds later we come upon a chain wreck in the other lane, on the other side of the meridian. Total of 42 cars. I glanced sideways at him. He looked studiously out the front windshield.

Update on our seat….at this point it looks kind of OK, but I can see the lighter streaks where the guy scrubbed the hell out of it. I’m assuming the lighter streaks are cleaner residue and I’m assuming they’ll rinse out fairly easily. So we’ll go back on Monday see what Walmart says.

@Dutchess_III LMFAO.