Court Grants Summary Judgment to Grocery Store Where Plaintiff Failed to Show Cause of Fall or Notice of Hazard

The plaintiff alleged that she slipped and fell in the women’s restroom of the defendant’s grocery store. The plaintiff claimed she slipped on some unknown substance, which caused her to fall and strike the toilet. After discovery had been completed, the defendant filed a motion for summary judgment and argued that the plaintiff failed to show that the defendant had actual or constructive notice of the alleged slippery condition.

In deciding the motion, the trial court reasoned that the “burden for establishing notice in wet floor cases is high,” as a plaintiff “must show both how the water ended up on the floor and prove how long the condition existed.” The trial court noted that “[e]stablishing a time period is particularly difficult.”

After considering all the evidence, including the plaintiff’s discovery responses and deposition testimony, the trial court ruled that it was unclear what actually caused the plaintiff to fall. The court noted that the plaintiff was not able to identify the substance or what caused the condition. The court reasoned that “[w]ithout some indication of what the substance actually was, for example a leaking toilet or spilled hand soap, or something else entirely, it is difficult to determine if this was a longstanding condition as opposed to a transitory one.” The court held that the plaintiff provided no evidence of the length of time the condition existed or that the defendant had any notice of the condition.

The court noted that in opposition to summary judgment, the plaintiff relied upon an alleged hearsay statement made by an employee about the store’s failure to check the bathroom prior to the incident and a claimed chart relative to bathroom checks. However, the court found that the plaintiff failed to discover more information about the claimed chart during discovery and there was no evidence that the chart even existed.

The court ruled that “[h]earsay and an alleged document that has not been requested or produced in discovery are not sufficient to overcome a motion for summary judgment.” As such, the trial court granted the defendant’s motion.