Plaintiff Secures $5 Million Judgment In Gwinnett County Slip And Fall

A Gwinnett County jury awarded a plaintiff $5.2 million in a slip and fall case that occurred at a Ross Dress for Less store. According to the lawsuit, the plaintiff was shopping at a Ross store after a chemotherapy appointment in 2017 when she slipped and fell on a slippery substance on the floor. Under normal circumstances, her injuries would have been treatable. However, because she’d already had a lung removed to remove a cancerous tumor, she was not able to get the procedure she needed.

What began as a straightforward slip and fall lawsuit, turned complex when the parties battled over whether or not the store had put up a “wet floor” sign. The plaintiff moved to file an amended pre-trial order arguing that Ross had failed to follow its own policies for gathering and preserving evidence to definitively resolve the issue of whether or not there was a “wet floor” sign. The plaintiff further sought punitive damages against the store for “concealing and destroying evidence” as well as “fabricating a witness” who the plaintiff contended was not there when the original accident occurred.

Elements of negligence and slip and fall lawsuits 

In order to prove your slip and fall lawsuit, you must be able to establish that the proprietor who controlled the area in which you fell was negligent. This can be proven in one of two ways.

The first way is to establish that employees of the defendant knew about the dangerous condition and did nothing to remedy it. In this case, you argue that the company failed to mitigate the dangerous condition before a serious injury occurred.

The second way to prove a slip and fall lawsuit is to establish that the proprietor should have known about the dangerous condition but didn’t because they failed to exercise ordinary care. As an example, areas around drink dispensers can get wet. Knowing this, the proprietor should have their employees check the area on occasion to ensure that the area is free from dangerous conditions.

Putting up a “wet floor” sign definitely helps your case as a defendant. In this case, however, the defendant could not prove that they had placed a wet floor sign in the area with the dangerous condition. If they had, they could have argued that the dangerous condition was “open and obvious” to anyone who was paying attention. In this case, however, surveillance footage that could have proven there was a “wet floor” sign near the wet floor went missing. The defendant was accused of destroying evidence and the plaintiffs moved for sanctions against the defendant, which were denied.

Talk to a Jacksonville Slip and Fall Injury Attorney Today 

Gillette Law represents the interests of Jacksonville residents who have suffered slip and fall injuries on the premises of a commercial property. Every proprietor owes the public a duty of care to ensure that its premises are safe. When they fail, you can sue. Call our Jacksonville personal injury lawyers today to schedule a consultation, and we can begin investigating your case right away.

Source:

law.com/dailyreportonline/2024/05/31/how-this-litigation-team-secured-a-5-2m-gwinnett-county-win-for-slip-and-fall-plaintiff-with-terminal-illness/