The Arizona Superior Court Wednesday said Circle K and other businesses are responsible for keeping customers safe from harm following a 2020 lawsuit.

But that safety doesn’t stem from the numerous crime reports often associated with the Tempe-based convenience store chain — Arizona State University academics have called metro Phoenix Circle K stores “hotspots for crime.”

It’s a little more mundane, but it has businesses trying not to be caught up in the next McDonald’s-hot-coffee lawsuit.

In March 2020, Roxanne Perez visited a Phoenix Circle K and tripped over a case of bottled water placed at the end of an aisle as a floor display. Perez claimed she did not see the case before she tripped and fell.

She sued the convenience store, claiming it had created “a dangerous condition” by failing “to either remedy the condition or warn her of it,” the court opinion read. It did not specify the severity of her injuries.

In the opinion, Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer wrote, “Because Perez was Circle K’s business invitee, it owed her a duty to keep the store in a reasonably safe condition while she was in the market.”

While the Maricopa County Superior Court ruled in favor of Circle K “because the water display was an open and obvious condition” in 2022, the Supreme Court disagreed.

“Indisputably, Circle K, as a business owner, has an affirmative duty to make and keep its markets reasonably safe for customers, who are invitees,” the opinion said.

The court sent the case back to trial, meaning the decision whether businesses are ultimately liable for customer safety is up in the air.

And that’s something retail owners like Dave Karsten of Maricopa’s Ace Hardware said could easily translate into a slippery slope.

“The liability that a shop owner would have to keep customers safe from anything that’s within our reasonable control makes sense to me,” he told InMaricopa. “But if a customer hurts somebody else, are we liable for that? If lightning strikes the building and causes something to happen, are we liable for that? I hope not.”

And that’s a cost that could go right back to the customer, according to Karsten.

“Any costs associated with the business eventually makes it through to the customer,” he said.