Bonck v. K-Mart Corp.

733 So. 2d 1277, 98 La.App. 4 Cir. 2159, 1999 La. App. LEXIS 1593, 1999 WL 342393
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedMay 19, 1999
DocketNo. 98-CA-2159
StatusPublished

This text of 733 So. 2d 1277 (Bonck v. K-Mart Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bonck v. K-Mart Corp., 733 So. 2d 1277, 98 La.App. 4 Cir. 2159, 1999 La. App. LEXIS 1593, 1999 WL 342393 (La. Ct. App. 1999).

Opinion

11 KIRBY, Judge.

Plaintiffs, Janice and Harold Bonck, appeal the trial court judgment dismissing their claims against defendants, Kmart Corporation, XYZ Manufacturing, Inc., and John Hansmann. We affirm.

Janice Bonck, hereinafter referred to as plaintiff, testified that on April 18, 1995, she was shopping at the Kmart department store in Meraux. She saw a shelf with decorator tables in the home furnishings department and decided to buy one. Plaintiff put the boxed table in her shopping cart. While still in the same department, plaintiff changed her mind and decided not to get the table. She reached into her cart to retrieve the table and put it back on the shelf. As she was doing so, the table allegedly fell out of the box and landed on her left foot. Plaintiff fell to the floor seconds later.

Plaintiff stated that the boxed tables were stacked “pancake” style on the shelf. She said that when she picked up the box to return it to the shelf, she did not look at the other end of the box. She did not realize that the box had a perforated hole that could be punched out and used as a handle. Plaintiff testified that there | gwaa no warning on the front of the box about the proper way to hold it. After her fall, store employee Juanita Grapheo assisted the plaintiff and summoned assistant store manager Darrell Miley. Plaintiff said that when Grapheo arrived, the table was out of the box and on the floor. She also said that when Miley arrived, the box, the table and two of the table legs were still on the floor. She said the assistant manager picked up the table and legs and put them back into the box and took the box with him.

On cross-examination, plaintiff said that when she took the box off of the shelf, it was not torn and the flaps on both ends of the box were securely in place. She said she did not inspect the box after the accident. She did not know why the table came out of the box.

John Hansmann testified that he was employed as the store manager of the Kmart in Meraux at the time of the accident. He was informed that an accident had occurred in which a table had fallen out of a box. Hansmann explained store policy for inspecting merchandise on shelves. He did not recall whether or not he checked the aisle with the decorator table boxes on the date of the accident. He could not recall if he was working on that date.

Darrell Miley testified that he was working as a soft lines manager at the Kmart in Meraux on April 18, 1995. The soft lines manager is in charge of the apparel portion of the store. His department included the boxed decorator tables. He said the tables are always stacked one on top of the other, in a “pancake” fashion. Miley was then shown a photograph taken at the Meraux Kmart that | ¡¡showed boxed tables that had been vertically stacked. On April 18, 1995, Miley was paged and instructed to report to the scene of an accident in the domestics department. When he arrived at the scene, he found plaintiff and Juanita Grapheo, a store employee. He said that a box with a decorator table was on the floor. He stressed that the table was contained inside of the box.

Miley testified that he wrote the accident report for this incident. He was told that the table fell out of its box and onto plaintiffs toes. He said the store manager was told that the table had fallen out of the box because that is what the plaintiff reported. In the section of the accident report entitled “Customer’s Version of How Accident Happened,” Miley wrote, “Table fell out of box when customer picked up box from the buggy to put box back on shelf. Table was back in the box when I arrived at the scene of the accident.” He does not recall being told that plaintiff fell after the table came out of the [1279]*1279box. Miley said that plaintiff was sitting on the floor and her toes were red. He noted that ice was being applied to plaintiffs toes. He stated that he did not pick up the box off of the floor but he could see that it was not torn. He could not recall what he did with the box after taking the report but he said if the box were damaged, he normally would have brought it to the store’s holding area for damaged merchandise.

Miley testified that Kmart policy is to take damaged merchandise off of the store shelves as soon as the damage is noticed. He said that when he worked at the Kmart in Meraux, he routinely conducted inspections of the merchandise on the shelves. He said he did not see anything unsafe about the decorator table boxes on 14April 18, 1995, either before or after the accident. He said other employees also inspect the merchandise throughout the day. One of those employees was Juanita Gra-pheo. She did not report anything unsafe about the decorator tables on April 18, 1995. Miley said that based on his inspection of the box, he could not determine whether there was anything wrong with the box that might have caused plaintiffs accident.

Juanita Grapheo testified that she was working as a clerk in the domestics department at the Meraux Kmart on April 18, 1995. She stated that when she came back from a fifteen-minute break, she saw the plaintiff sitting on the floor in one of the aisles. Grapheo approached the plaintiff to offer her help and the plaintiff told her that a table had fallen on her toe. She got plaintiff a glass of water and when she returned, Darrell Miley was at the accident scene. She recalls straightening the decorator table boxes on that date right before she went on the above-mentioned break. Grapheo testified that on that date, she inspected the stack of decorator table boxes to make sure they were closed and in good repair, but she did not inspect each box individually. She said the boxes looked as though they were secured. She said the boxes were always stacked flat at the Meraux store. She said she noticed prior to April 18, 1995 that the box had a perforated hole that could be punched out and used as a handle. She said that if the handle is utilized, the weight of the contents of the box is on one of the sides of the box that does not have opening flaps. She also said that there is no indication on the front of the box that there is a handle that can be made by punching out the perforated hole.

| RGrapheo said she found it unusual that plaintiff told Miley that the table fell out of the box and onto her foot because the table was in its box and in the plaintiffs shopping cart when Grapheo first saw plaintiff. She said plaintiff told her only that the box fell on her toe, but not that the table fell out of the box and then onto her toe. She said that when she saw the box in the shopping cart, there did not appear to be anything wrong with it.

Andrew J. McPhate, a mechanical engineer, testified by deposition. He examined a box described to him as the same kind that packaged the table that allegedly fell out of its box and onto plaintiffs feet when she lifted it out of her shopping cart. This box was introduced into evidence at trial. He said that both ends of the box have flaps that can be opened and closed. He described this box as six-sided with openings on only two of the sides. McPhate said a label on the box was placed, closest to one of the ends that opened. He said that the rear of the . box had a perforation line for a hand hole that could be punched out. He said that this box was designed to be carried by this hand hole. When properly carried by the hand hole, the weight of the contents in the box would be on the sides of the box that cannot be opened.

McPhate’s opinion was that the only thing wrong with this box was the placement of the label. He said the box was otherwise structurally sound.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Mistich v. Volkswagen of Germany, Inc.
666 So. 2d 1073 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1996)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
733 So. 2d 1277, 98 La.App. 4 Cir. 2159, 1999 La. App. LEXIS 1593, 1999 WL 342393, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bonck-v-k-mart-corp-lactapp-1999.