Take a lesson from this plaintiff who was injured at a grocery store after slipping on the wet floor. Please be careful whenever you see the yellow caution cone! Here are the details: Premises Liability- a wine vendor dropped a bottle of wine at a grocery store- while the vendor made efforts to clean up the spill, the floor remained slippery - a few minutes later the plaintiff walked through the area and slipped - she struck her head and suffered a serious retinal injury. Adams v. Kroger, 13:11-141 Verdict: Defense verdict on liability Federal: Richmond, VA Date: 12-17-13 Deborah Adams shopped at a Kroger grocery in Richmond on 3-6-12. She perused the wine section. Unknown to her, a hazard had been created in that area of the store just 19 minutes earlier. [This is an unusual premises liability case because the entire events of the fall (separated by 19 minutes) were recorded on video.] Nineteen minutes earlier a wine vendor (Gary Judd) working for Republic National Distributing was restocking the wine shelves when he dropped a bottle. Judd went to work cleaning up the spill. That included getting a dustpan and a broom. He also picked up loose glass and mopped the area. Finally Judd placed a warning cone. Six minutes passed between the time Judd concluded his clean-up and Adams arrival. She slipped on the wet floor and struck her head. It was a hard hit, and it left Adams with retinal damage. Despite undergoing four repair surgeries and incurring medical bills of approximately $30,000, Adams is legally blind in that eye. In this lawsuit (removed from Chesterfield Circuit Court), she alleged negligence by (1) Judd of Republic National Distributing in cleaning up the spill and still leaving a hazard, and (2) Kroger in failing to become involved in the cleanup. Particularly, she cited that while Judd tried to clean the floor, he mopped an area that was too wide and then didnt dry the floor. Making it worse, he used a slippery hand sanitizer on the floor. Finally he placed just a single warning cone. Kroger too was implicated for doing nothing, even though 19 minutes passed between the time of the spill and the plaintiffs fall. Republic National Distributing defended Judds actions in cleaning up the spill and described them as reasonable. Similarly, Kroger denied having notice (constructive or otherwise) of the spill hazard. Adams countered this notion citing that the key 19 minutes (in which Kroger did nothing) were more than long enough to put the store on notice. This case first came to trial in March of 2012. Judge Spencer granted a directed verdict for the defendants at the close of the plaintiffs proof. He concluded the defendants had acted reasonably in cleaning up the spill. Adams took an appeal to the Fourth Circuit. In a non-published per curiam opinion (issued in June of 2013), the intermediate court reversed Judge Spencer. It concluded there were fact disputes that precluded a directed verdict. The case was tried again for two days in Richmond. This jury answered that both Kroger and Republic National Distributing were not liable, and Adams took nothing. Having so found, the jury did not reach if Adams was contributorily negligent or her damages. A defense judgment closed the case.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Jun 2014 21:11:59 +0000
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