Florida Fifth District Court of Appeal Affirms Summary Judgment in Favor of Store Defendant in Case Addressing Constructive Notice of Hazardous Conditions
By Kelly M. Vogt
In Sandra Leftwich v. Wal-Mart Stores East, LP and Thomas Schoendorf, the plaintiff appealed a trial court’s entry of summary judgment in favor of the defendant, arguing that summary judgment must be reversed because of a genuine dispute of material fact regarding whether the defendant had constructive notice of a liquid on the floor that caused the plaintiff to slip and fall.
Under Florida law, a plaintiff must show that a business had actual or constructive notice of a liquid on the floor. The presence of dirt, wheel marks or footprints in a liquid are often enough to make the business’s constructive knowledge a question of fact for the jury.
However, in this case, a store employee testified that he walked near the subject area less than 10 minutes before the plaintiff fell, and there was no liquid on the floor at that time. Surveillance video showed many customers standing, walking and pushing shopping carts through the very spot where the liquid was later found.
The Fifth DCA therefore concluded that any of those customers could have spilled the liquid before the plaintiff’s fall. Therefore, a witness’s testimony that the water appeared to have footprints and wheel marks in it could not support a permissible inference that the liquid had been on the floor so long that the store could be charged with constructive notice.
As a result, the Fifth DCA affirmed the trial court’s entry of summary judgment in favor of the store.
Kelly M. Vogt