The video is already being overwritten.

Falling in a store feels like it should be simple. It wasn't your fault, it happened on their floor, they have insurance. In practice these are among the harder injury claims to prove, and the reason is a doctrine most people have never heard of: notice.

A store is not automatically responsible for every hazard on its floor. It is responsible for hazards it created, hazards it actually knew about, and hazards that were there long enough that a reasonably careful store should have found them. A jar that shattered ninety seconds before you walked past is usually nobody's fault. The same spill, sitting there for forty minutes while three employees walked by, is a case.

Which of those you have is almost always answered by surveillance video and by the store's own inspection logs — the sweep sheets employees are supposed to initial on a schedule. Both are in the store's possession, both are routinely overwritten or discarded on a normal retention cycle measured in weeks, and neither is preserved unless someone asks in writing. That is the single most time-sensitive thing on this entire site.