Woman Falls, Sues Walmart

A woman fell in water about fifteen feet from the checkout in a Walmart store. She was injured. She sued. The trial court dismissed. She appealed.[1] 

A store has a general duty to exercise reasonable care to protect customers from hazards, but only if the store actually knew, or under the circumstances should have known, of the hazardous condition. It is up to the injury claimant to prove notice.

If unsafe conditions are reasonably foreseeable because of the business’s operating methods, the logical basis for the notice requirement dissolves and the injury victim does not need to prove notice. This is the “self-service” or Pimentel exception.  This exception does not apply to the entire area of the store where customers serve themselves.  There must be a relation between the hazardous condition and the self-service mode of operation of the business.

Here the Court of Appeals held that the injured woman could not show a relation between the mode of operation and her injury. The injury did not occur in the check-out area where customers unload their items, nor in the vicinity of a grab-and-go drink service.

The woman who slipped-and-fell could not prove that Walmart had actual knowledge of the water spill. She also could not show constructive knowledge – that the store should have known.

The woman saw no water until after she fell. Her daughter was with her and assisted her after the slip-and-fall. The daughter saw no water before her mother fell. There is no evidence as to how long the spill was there, and therefore no way to prove it was there so long that it was unreasonable for the store not to discover and remedy it.

She also argued that Walmart failed to preserve store surveillance video, and therefore she was entitled to a legal presumption that the video was unfavorable to Walmart. The Court of Appeals rejected this spoliation argument. There was no evidence that the store cameras ever captured the woman’s fall, and even her own expert after examining the Walmart camera system concluded the store cameras would not have captured a fall in that part of the store. There is also no record of when her attorney requested the video.

The injured woman lost on appeal.

This is another case illustrating that – contrary to widely held belief – slip-and-fall cases are often tough for the injury claimant. A store is not responsible for your injury merely by virtue of the fact that the injury occurred on their premises.

If you have any injury claim, it is important to contact an attorney early so that evidence can be preserved and the case properly investigated.

By personal injury attorney Travis Eller