Cisneros v. Costco Wholesale Corp.

754 So. 2d 819, 2000 Fla. App. LEXIS 3975, 2000 WL 346158
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedApril 5, 2000
DocketNo. 3D99-2590
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 754 So. 2d 819 (Cisneros v. Costco Wholesale Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cisneros v. Costco Wholesale Corp., 754 So. 2d 819, 2000 Fla. App. LEXIS 3975, 2000 WL 346158 (Fla. Ct. App. 2000).

Opinion

SORONDO, J.

Sonia Cisneros (plaintiff) appeals the lower court’s Final Order granting Summary Judgment for Costco Wholesale Corp.

On September 11, 1997, plaintiff entered the Costco Warehouse in Miami to shop. She was in the store approximately fifteen minutes when she walked back to where the cash registers are located in order to get a cart. While passing the area in front of the registers, she slipped and fell. Plaintiff saw nothing on the floor prior to her fall. After her fall, she observed a line of something through which a few wheel tracks and several footprints had been made. She was assisted by a Costco employee who had brought a wheelchair and helped her into it. The employee then wheeled her into the manager’s office, where she remained until an ambulance arrived to take her to the hospital.

Independent eyewitness Irma Sandoval testified in her deposition that she worked for an independent contractor at the time of plaintiffs accident. Sandoval was demonstrating jellybeans at a table approximately nine to thirteen feet from where the plaintiff fell. Sandoval observed plaintiff walking approximately three or four meters away and saw her fall to the floor between the location where Sandoval was demonstrating jellybeans and the checkout aisle. Approximately five minutes before plaintiffs fall, Sandoval had observed water spilled on the floor from an adjacent flower display, maintained by another independent contractor. Sandoval took a paper towel and wiped up the water. At that time, she observed the general area, including the area where the plaintiff had fallen, and it was clean and free of any foreign substances. While Sandoval saw track marks in the line of liquid soap, she testified that the liquid soap had only been on the floor for a short time. The source of the liquid soap was a cart, which was pushed through the area just before the plaintiffs arrival.

Immediately after the accident, Sandoval observed the cart with the leaking soap. The cart had moved only four or five meters from the scene of the accident. Immediately after plaintiffs fall, Sandoval and Costco employees observed a thin thread of liquid soap emanating from the cart in question. They followed the trail and found a male customer with the leaking cart half way through the aisle. One of the Costco employees then stopped the customer and cleaned up the mess.

Costco employee Angela Lawson testified in her deposition that on the day of the accident, she was on duty in the Member Service Department, located near the front entrance to the warehouse. She was called to the office to interview the plaintiff after the fall. Immediately after the fall, she inspected the scene of the accident as part of her investigation. She testified that Sandoval was twenty-seven feet away from the plaintiff at the time of the fall. There was a trail of liquid detergent from the laundry aisle, where the liquid detergent is displayed, running directly to the cash registers, where the cart containing the leaky bottle was located. Lawson took photographs of the trail of detergent at the scene. The cart that was the source of [821]*821that trail was still in front of the register when Lawson arrived. Lawson came to the conclusion that the detergent had been on the floor for the amount of time it took the cart to go from the laundry aisle to the register.

In September of 1999, a hearing was held by the lower court on Costco’s Motion for Summary Judgment. The lower court found the unrefuted testimony of Sandoval and Lawson established the source of the detergent on the floor and the length of time it had been there was five minutes or less and that there was no other testimony that this was not true. The court granted Costco’s motion, and this appeal followed.

The plaintiff argues that based on circumstantial evidence, specifically, dirty footprints, track marks, and a wet substance on Costco’s floor, this case should have gone to the jury as there was a genuine issue of material fact concerning whether Costco had constructive notice of the dangerous condition. We agree.

Florida law is clear that “constructive notice may be shown by presenting evidence that the condition existed for such a length of time that, in exercise of ordinary care, the defendant should have known of the condition.” Burnett v. Lower Fla. Keys Health Sys., Inc., 722 So.2d 951, 951 (Fla. 3d DCA 1998). In Altman v. Publix Supermarkets, Inc., 579 So.2d 351 (Fla. 3d DCA 1991), the plaintiff slipped and fell at the supermarket. She testified that the floor was dirty, oily and garbage strewn. Additionally, she said that “grocery cart tracks and footprints traversed the dirty area where she fell.” Id. at 352. This Court held that her testimony “was sufficient evidence to present a fact question as to whether a dangerous condition was created by the store’s employees ... and whether the dangerous condition on the floor existed for a sufficient length of time to charge the defendant with constructive notice.” Id.; See also Montgomery v. Florida Jitney Jungle Stores, 281 So.2d 302 (Fla.1973); Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc. v. Guenther, 395 So.2d 244 (Fla. 3d DCA 1981). We find this case indistinguishable from Altman.

Costco raises two arguments worthy of discussion. First, it argues that the undisputed evidence establishes that the liquid detergent in question could not have been on the floor for more than five minutes. The second argument seeks to bolster the first. Costco argues that when the shopping cart containing the leaking detergent was identified, there was no pooling of liquid detergent underneath the cart. Such pooling would have been present had the cart been stationed at that location for any significant period of time. The fact that no such pooling was present, Costco posits, establishes that the cart traversed the distance between the laundry supply aisle and its ultimate resting place within a very short span of time. We disagree that this is the only interpretation possible.

Addressing the second argument first, we are unpersuaded that the absence of pooling of the liquid detergent underneath the grocery cart establishes the timing argued by Costco. We first note that we can find no evidence in this record that there was no pooling of liquid detergent underneath the grocery cart in question. The sole question regarding this issue was put to Ms. Lawson during her deposition as follows:

Q. Was there any large puddle of detergent under the cart when you arrived at the scene?
A. No.

(Emphasis added). The testimony was that there was no large puddle under the cart. This does not exclude the possibility that there may have been some liquid detergent under the cart, a question that'was not asked by either side. Nevertheless, assuming for the sake of argument, that there was no pooling, an example serves to discredit Costco’s position. If the leak emanated from a hole on the bottom of the detergent bottle, the scenario proposed by Costco might be correct. However, if the hole was on the high end of the bottle, the [822]*822liquid content would spill out only until such time as the level of the liquid inside the bottle dropped below the level of the hole. This could result in only a momentary leak. On this issue, witness Angela Lawson testified in her deposition as follows:

Q. Where was the leak coming from?
A.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
754 So. 2d 819, 2000 Fla. App. LEXIS 3975, 2000 WL 346158, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cisneros-v-costco-wholesale-corp-fladistctapp-2000.