Cote v. Lowe's Home Center, Inc.

896 F. Supp. 2d 637, 2012 WL 4056111, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 131284
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Michigan
DecidedSeptember 14, 2012
DocketCase No. 11-11908
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 896 F. Supp. 2d 637 (Cote v. Lowe's Home Center, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Michigan primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cote v. Lowe's Home Center, Inc., 896 F. Supp. 2d 637, 2012 WL 4056111, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 131284 (E.D. Mich. 2012).

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART DEFENDANT’S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

THOMAS L. LUDINGTON, District Judge.

A man drives his motorized wheelchair down the main aisle of a Lowe’s Home Center store. At the same time, an employee on a ladder moves boxes on the top shelf in a side aisle. As the man in the wheelchair passes by the side aisle, a box falls from the shelf that the employee is working on. The box — ten inches high and three feet long — strikes the man in the back of the head. Knocked unconscious, the man loses control of the wheelchair, which veers into a metal refrigerator, throwing the man forward.

The question in this case is whether based on these factual allegations the man may assert claims for premises liability or ordinary negligence or both under Michigan law.

Plaintiff Laurent Cote has brought suit against Defendant Lowe’s Home Centers, Inc., asserting claims for premises liability, ordinary negligence, gross negligence, and grossly negligent hiring/retention. Defendant now moves for summary judgment. ECF No. 10.

Because Plaintiff has introduced no evidence of gross negligence, or grossly negligent hiring/retention, Defendant is entitled to summary judgment on those claims. But because Plaintiff has introduced eyewitness testimony that the box fell from the very shelf that the employee was working on, it reasonable to infer that the box fell either because of the condition of the premises or the acts of the employee.1 Consequently, under the circumstances of this case, the claims of premises liability and ordinary negligence are not mutually exclusive — and Defendant is not entitled to summary judgment on either. Accordingly, the Court will grant in part and deny in part Defendant’s motion.

I

A

A falling tree branch broke Plaintiffs neck in 1980. PI. Dep. 54:3-11, 57:20-22, [639]*639Sept. 28, 2011, attached as Def.’s Mot. Summ. J. Ex. 2; see also Lingenfelter Medical Records 2, attached as Pl.’s Resp. Ex. E (noting the blow fractured Plaintiffs C4-C5 vertebrae). Plaintiff 22 years old at the time, was left unable to move “[fjrom, like, the midstomach area all the way down.” Pl. Dep. 57:13. Plaintiff did, however, retain “normal functions óf his upper extremities.” Levin Medical Records, at 1, attached as Pl.’s Resp. Ex. F.

About thirty years later, Plaintiff alleges, another falling object struck him in the head and injured him, giving rise to this litigation.

On the evening of April 9, 2008, Plaintiff went to Lowe’s Home Center in Saginaw, Michigan, to purchase a bathroom medicine cabinet. PL Dep. 62:15-23, 105:8-20. Plaintiff was in a motorized wheelchair. Pl. Dep. 47:18^48:3. With him were two gentlemen, Floyd Hall and Rick Ramirez, who both worked part time for Plaintiff. Pl. Dep. 63:11-12.

On entering the store, Plaintiff asked one of Defendant’s employees “where are the bathroom cabinets? And he said down towards the lumber aisle. So we [went] down towards the lumber.” PL Dep. 90:15-17.

As the gentlemen moved down the store’s main aisle towards the lumber section, Mr. Ramirez recalled that he had a job to do involving wood paneling. Pl. Dep. 90:24-91:9. Plaintiff recollects: “So he took off in the paneling, said he’d meet up with us later.” PL Dep. 91:1^4. Plaintiff and Mr. Hall continued down the main aisle towards the lumber section, glancing down the aisles that they passed for medicine cabinets. Pl. Dep. 92:4-6.

In one aisle, Plaintiff and Mr. Hall- saw an employee and a ladder. See PL Dep. 111:12-112:11; Hall Dep. 69:5-21, Mar. 7, 2012, attached as Def.’s Mot. Ex. 3. The ladder had a series of steps leading to a platform. Hall Dep. 80:8-10. Plaintiff recalls that when he passed the employee and ladder for the first time, the employee was near the ladder “like opening boxes or something.” Pl. Dep. 112:2-3. Mr. Hall disagrees, recalling that the employee was already on the ladder “shuffling boxes around.” Hall Dep. 70:25-71; see also Hall Dep. 69:5-25.

Eventually, Plaintiff and Mr. Hall reached the lumber section without seeing the medicine cabinets, and so asked another employee for directions. Pl. 116:1-17. “The guy pointed, said you’ve got to go all the way down to where you came,” Plaintiff recounts. PL 116:1-17.

Returning the way they came, Plaintiff and Mr. Hall again approached the aisle with the employee and the ladder. Pl. Dep. 118:10-18. This time, the gentlemen agree, the employee was on the platform on top of the ladder moving boxes on the shelf. Compare PL Dep. 118:15, with Hall Dep. 90:15-21. Counsel for Defendant asked Plaintiff in his deposition:

Q: Did [the employee] actually take a box off and hand it to a customer that you saw?
A: I know he was working on moving the boxes around.
Q: Did you see him touch a box?
A: Yeah, I seen him, boxes in his hand.
Q: Did you see him remove a box from anywhere?
A: From the, yeah, the area that he was working in, yeah.
Q: What did he do with that box?
A: He started[ — ]I think he was starting to go down the ladder, and then after that, that was it.
Q: What do you mean after that, that was it?
A: That’s where I got hit.
[640]*640Q: Okay. So you don’t remember anything other than you see some guy, you think a Lowe’s employee, on a ladder. You say that you see [him] grab a box, is that what you are saying?
A: Yeah.
Q: Is that a yes?
A: Yes.
Q: All right. And did you see him hand it to a customer?
A: I don’t know after that. I got hit, so I don’t know what happened after that.... Q: Okay, so you’re saying that you don’t have any recollection of anything after when you get, you think you get hit?
A: Right.

PI. Dep. 94:5-95:1, 96:25-97:3. Returning to this incident later in the deposition, counsel for Defendant asked:

Q: Before, in terms of your recollection of this particular incident, how close to the actual incident, as you understand it, does your memory go?
A: As soon as the box hit me, that was it.
Q: Do you remember even seeing the box fall?
A: No.
Q: Do you remember even seeing anything fall whatsoever?
A: No.
Q: Okay. So you don’t know if a box even fell on you. All you know is you were going down the aisle and then you have no memory?
A: I felt something hit my head, so it must have been a box.
Q: Well, but how would you know that unless you saw it?
A: Right. Yeah.
Q: But you didn’t see a box hit you in the head?
A: No.

PI.

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Bluebook (online)
896 F. Supp. 2d 637, 2012 WL 4056111, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 131284, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cote-v-lowes-home-center-inc-mied-2012.