Dollar Tree Lawsuits: OSHA Fines, Guilty Plea, and Settlements

Dollar Tree lawsuits and government enforcement actions have piled up across nearly every category of retail liability: a $50 million wrongful death claim over a woman found dead in a Miami store freezer, a record $41.675 million federal food safety plea by subsidiary Family Dollar, a January 2026 settlement with the New York Attorney General over recalled lead-contaminated applesauce, more than 400 OSHA violations since 2017, and a steady flow of slip-and-fall suits. Several of these matters reached major stages in 2025 and early 2026.

Miami Freezer Wrongful Death Suit

Helen Massiell Garay Sanchez, a 32-year-old mother of two, was found dead inside a walk-in freezer at a Dollar Tree store in Miami on December 14, 2025. On January 28, 2026, her husband and children filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Miami-Dade County seeking more than $50 million from Dollar Tree and store manager Yanelkis Gonzalez.¹

The complaint alleges the freezer had no internal emergency release, latch, or alarm, and that employees did not properly monitor surveillance footage or confirm all customers had left before closing.¹ The family also claims Gonzalez was told Sanchez was missing and had not left the store but refused a customer’s request to check surveillance footage.²

On February 11, 2026, the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Sanchez died of environmental hypothermia, with ethanol use as a contributory cause; her blood alcohol level was 0.112%.³ Police had said there was no evidence of foul play and that Sanchez entered the freezer voluntarily.¹ A Dollar Tree spokesperson said in early February 2026 that the company does not comment on active litigation and is cooperating with authorities.⁴

Family Dollar’s Record Food Safety Guilty Plea

On February 26, 2024, Family Dollar pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of causing FDA-regulated products to become adulterated while held under insanitary conditions at a distribution center in West Memphis, Arkansas. The $41.675 million penalty, made up of a $200,000 criminal fine and a $41.475 million forfeiture judgment, was the largest criminal penalty ever imposed in a federal food safety case.⁵

The company began receiving mouse and pest reports in August 2020. By January 2021, employees knew products were being stored alongside contamination, but shipments to more than 400 stores across six states continued until January 2022. An FDA inspection that month confirmed live and dead rodents, feces, urine, and evidence of gnawing and nesting throughout the facility. Fumigation killed 1,270 rodents.⁶ Family Dollar voluntarily recalled drugs, medical devices, cosmetics, and food products sold at 404 affected stores since January 2021.⁵

The plea requires Family Dollar and Dollar Tree to meet corporate compliance and reporting requirements for three years.⁵ Fourteen consumer class actions were filed over the contamination, and Family Dollar reached a tentative settlement of those claims without admitting liability.⁷

New York Attorney General Settlement Over Recalled Applesauce

On January 23, 2026, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a $559,250 settlement with Dollar Tree over the company’s failure to promptly pull recalled WanaBana cinnamon applesauce pouches from its shelves. The product had been recalled nationwide on October 29, 2023 for lead contamination, but Dollar Tree sold at least 226 three-pack units in New York after receiving notice.⁸

Dollar Tree received the urgent recall email on October 29, 2023 but did not implement register locks at its branded stores until the following day, and waited until November 3 to block the products at combination Dollar Tree/Family Dollar locations. Inspectors found recalled pouches still on shelves at 25 New York stores between November 6 and December 6, 2023. The New York State Department of Health linked several dozen cases of elevated blood lead levels in children to the recalled WanaBana products, including 40 cases tied to products purchased at New York Dollar Tree stores.⁹

Dollar Tree neither admitted nor denied the findings but agreed to implement register “stop codes” within hours of receiving a recall notification, provide mandatory recall training to New York store managers, strengthen its system for notifying online customers of food recalls, and report compliance to the Attorney General’s office. The penalty is being directed toward lead poisoning prevention and food access programs in underserved New York communities.¹⁰

OSHA Fines and the Corporate-Wide Safety Settlement

Since 2017, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued more than 400 violations across Dollar Tree and Family Dollar stores, resulting in over $13 million in fines.¹¹ Inspectors have repeatedly cited stores for blocked exit routes, fire hazards, inaccessible fire extinguishers and electrical panels, and unsafely stacked inventory.¹²

On August 17, 2023, OSHA and Dollar Tree signed a corporate-wide settlement covering all Dollar Tree and Family Dollar stores under federal OSHA jurisdiction. The two-year deal resolved five contested cases with $1.35 million in penalties and imposed steep future consequences: if a store failed to correct a cited hazard within 48 hours of notification, penalties could reach $100,000 per day per violation, up to $500,000 per store.¹³ The agreement also required a 24-hour safety complaint hotline and anti-retaliation protections.¹¹

Fines continued after the settlement. Records show at least two additional OSHA penalties in 2025, one for $173,095 and another for $170,226.¹⁴ OSHA officials noted as early as April 2023 that systemic hazards persisted despite years of inspections, and critics have argued the fines represent a fraction of the company’s annual profits.¹²

Customer Injury Suits

Slip-and-fall and other customer injury claims recur throughout Dollar Tree’s litigation record. Peggy Brown, a New Jersey woman, received a $1.75 million settlement after slipping on a broken egg at an East Brunswick Dollar Tree in January 2020 and undergoing surgery to remove a damaged spinal disk. Dollar Tree denied negligence and argued through a medical expert that Brown’s injuries stemmed from preexisting degeneration, but the case settled before trial.¹⁵

A federal judge in Pennsylvania denied Dollar Tree’s motion to dismiss a claim by Greg Nelson, who slipped on spilled laundry detergent at a Sharon Hill store in September 2016. The court held that a witness’s account of overhearing a cashier acknowledge a prior complaint about the spill was admissible to show the store had notice of the hazard.¹⁶

In September 2025, the Western District of Pennsylvania ruled in Kincaid v. Dollar Tree, Inc., a case in which the plaintiff alleged she was injured when a cup of urine fell on her inside a store. After Dollar Tree removed the case to federal court, the plaintiff argued that naming the local store manager as a co-defendant destroyed diversity jurisdiction. The court found the joinder fraudulent, noting the complaint alleged only that the manager was on duty and came to the plaintiff’s aid, with no facts showing she “participated in creating the harm.” The manager was dismissed with prejudice and the case stayed in federal court against Dollar Tree.¹⁷

Store Closures and Securities Investigation

In March 2024, Bloomberg reported that Dollar Tree planned to close roughly 1,000 stores. The company’s stock dropped more than 13% in a single morning.¹⁸ Dollar Tree said it would shutter about 600 stores in the first half of fiscal 2024, with an additional 370 Family Dollar and 30 Dollar Tree stores to follow.¹⁹

Following the stock drop, securities firm Levi & Korsinsky announced it was investigating potential violations of federal securities laws tied to the closure announcement. No formal class action complaint had been filed as of the firm’s March 2024 disclosure.¹⁸

Total Penalties Paid to Date

Under its own brand, Dollar Tree has accumulated approximately $45.7 million in penalties across 350 regulatory records since 2000, split roughly between employment-related offenses ($21.3 million) and safety-related offenses ($21 million).¹⁴ Family Dollar’s record is larger, totaling roughly $174.2 million across 131 records, driven by the $41.675 million food safety penalty, a $45 million employment discrimination settlement in 2018, and multiple wage-and-hour class action settlements.²⁰

Those totals sit against a company that reported $8.9 billion in gross profit for fiscal year 2022. There are no federal criminal penalties for corporate executives over workplace safety hazards, workers’ compensation statutes generally block employees from suing over safety violations, and proposed OSHA fines are routinely negotiated down before final payment.¹²

1
Miami Herald. Family of Woman Found Dead in Miami Dollar Tree Freezer Files $50M Lawsuit
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NBC Miami. Family of Woman Found Dead in Miami Dollar Tree Freezer Files $50M Lawsuit
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NBC Miami. Cause of Death for Woman Found Dead in Miami Dollar Tree Freezer Ruled as Hypothermia
4
People. Cause of Death Revealed for Mom of Two Found Dead in Dollar Tree Freezer
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U.S. Department of Justice. Family Dollar Stores LLC Pleads Guilty to Holding Consumer Products Under Insanitary Conditions
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WBAY. Family Dollar Ordered to Pay Record $41.6 Million Fine Over Rat-Infested Warehouse
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AL.com. Family Dollar to Pay $41.6 Million Over Rodent-Infested Arkansas Warehouse
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New York Attorney General. Attorney General James Secures Nearly $560,000 From Dollar Tree for Selling Recalled Lead-Contaminated Products
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New York Attorney General. Dollar Tree Inc. Assurance of Discontinuance
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New York Attorney General. Attorney General James Secures Nearly $560,000 From Dollar Tree for Selling Recalled Lead-Contaminated Products
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NEWS CENTER Maine. Dollar Tree, Family Dollar Worker Safety
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Time. Dollar Stores OSHA Labor
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OSHA. Dollar Tree Corporate-Wide Settlement Agreement
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Good Jobs First Violation Tracker. Dollar Tree Violation Tracker
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Business Insider. Dollar Tree Shopper Gets $1.75 Million After Slipping on Egg
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The Legal Intelligencer. Federal Judge Approves Dollar Tree Slip-and-Fall Case
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The Legal Intelligencer. Suit Against Dollar Tree Stays in Fed Court After Effort to Join Store Manager Fails
18
AccessNewswire. Lost Money on Dollar Tree Inc. (DLTR)? Contact Levi and Korsinsky
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NorthJersey.com. Family Dollar NJ Store Layoffs Dollar Tree Closing
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Good Jobs First Violation Tracker. Family Dollar Stores Violation Tracker