Lee v. RYAN'S FAMILY STEAK HOUSES, INC.

960 So. 2d 1042, 2006 La.App. 1 Cir. 1400, 2007 La. App. LEXIS 873, 2007 WL 1299663
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedMay 4, 2007
Docket2006 CA 1400
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 960 So. 2d 1042 (Lee v. RYAN'S FAMILY STEAK HOUSES, INC.) 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
Lee v. RYAN'S FAMILY STEAK HOUSES, INC., 960 So. 2d 1042, 2006 La.App. 1 Cir. 1400, 2007 La. App. LEXIS 873, 2007 WL 1299663 (La. Ct. App. 2007).

Opinion

960 So.2d 1042 (2007)

Ernestine LEE
v.
RYAN'S FAMILY STEAK HOUSES, INC.

No. 2006 CA 1400.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, First Circuit.

May 4, 2007.
Rehearing Denied June 28, 2007.

William R. Mustian, III, Metairie, Counsel for Plaintiff/Appellee Ernestine Lee.

*1043 Albert D. Giraud, Karen G. Arena, Baton Rouge, Counsel for Defendant/Appellant Ryan's Family Steak Houses, Inc.

Before: KUHN, GAIDRY, and WELCH, JJ.

GAIDRY, J.

In this case, defendant, Ryan's Family Steak Houses, Inc. ("Ryan's"), appeals a judgment in favor of plaintiff, Ernestine Lee, awarding damages for injuries sustained in a slip-and-fall accident. We reverse.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

This suit arises from a slip-and-fall accident which occurred at Ryan's on June 23, 2003. The accident was captured on video-tape by one of Ryan's surveillance cameras. The area shown on the video included two parallel food bars with an aisle in between ("parallel food bars"), and a third bar running perpendicular to the other two ("perpendicular food bar"). The video shows a Ryan's employee discovering some sort of spill in the aisle separating the perpendicular food bar from the parallel food bars. The employee stands watch over the spill while waiting for help. Another employee arrives with a mop bucket and proceeds to mop the area, while a third employee places a warning cone in the middle of the aisle. The cone appears to be about three feet tall[1] and is yellow with two exclamation points and a picture of a person slipping. The employee mopping the floor nudges the cone with the mop while mopping, leaving the cone about a foot or two to the right of its original position. After the employee finishes mopping, he exits the area and leaves the warning cone in place. The video shows Ms. Lee entering the food bar area soon after the mopping is finished, wearing shorts and athletic shoes. She inspects the food on the parallel food bars, then proceeds to the perpendicular food bar. Before reaching the perpendicular food bar, she appears to look down, then she steps up to the bar. After glancing at the food, Ms. Lee turns around and walks back the same way she came, passing the warning cone for the second time. She again appears to look down at the floor and then slips and falls right beside the cone. As Ms. Lee is starting to slip, a Ryan's employee, later identified as Shabriell Nikona McKey, appears in the video standing beside Ms. Lee. After Ms. Lee fell, a crowd began to gather around her. A chair was brought in and she was raised to a standing position, but after a few minutes the chair was removed and Ms. Lee laid back down on the floor in the same spot she fell to wait for emergency assistance. The floor in the area of the fall was re-mopped by what appears to be the same employee who originally mopped it. Customers continued to walk between the three food bars while Ms. Lee laid on the floor. Paramedics eventually arrived and Ms. Lee was placed on a stretcher and removed from the restaurant.

Ms. Lee filed a petition for damages against Ryan's in which she alleged that as a result of the fall, she suffered injuries to her neck and lower back, an increase in seizure activity, and other injuries. Ms. Lee testified at trial that on the day of the accident, she walked up to the perpendicular bar to look at the food, then noticed that the floor was slippery, and looked down and saw water on the floor. After seeing the water on the floor, she turned and looked at the manager,[2] then started *1044 walking back the way she came. She testified that the floor in her path had not felt slippery when she initially walked to the perpendicular bar. She denied seeing any warning signs in the area indicating that the floor was wet. She took about five or six steps and then slipped and fell on the floor, hitting her head. She testified that she began screaming because her head and back hurt. Ms. Lee claims that she had a seizure[3] "a few minutes" after the accident at Ryan's, and that the paramedics treated her for a seizure on the way to the hospital[4]; however, the EMS Run Report from West Jefferson Medical Center does not contain any mention of a seizure, and specifically states that there was no loss of consciousness. Ms. Lee claimed that the accident caused a five-month-long exacerbation of her pre-existing health problems.[5]

McKey, the cashier and server at Ryan's who witnessed the accident, testified that prior to the accident, a spill had been mopped up by a Ryan's employee and two warning cones[6] were placed in the area afterwards. Immediately prior to the accident, McKey was walking to one of the parallel food bars to refill the stack of clean plates and was beside Ms. Lee as she approached the perpendicular food bar. McKey testified that:

As [Ms. Lee] was walking to the [perpendicular food] bar, I said, how are you doing, ma'am? Watch your step. The floor is slippery. Because we had—we had the signs out, but she was walking to the bar, and I was walking with the plates, but I was just letting her know because he had just mopped up the spill. So she was walking, she turned—she was turning around, you know, because she was just looking. She hadn't had her plate yet. So she was turning around to go to the [parallel food] bar. And she was like, all right, baby. As soon as she was saying that, it was like she just slipped. And I said, I just told the woman to watch her step. And she just slipped down and she fell as she was turning around.

Dr. Michael Russo, a family practice physician, treated Ms. Lee both before and after the accident at Ryan's. He testified that she had a history of, among other things: cervical disc disease, tension headaches, and seizure disorder, which he noted may have a "pseudo-seizure[7] component to [it]." Dr. Russo saw Ms. Lee on June 18, 2003, five days before her accident at Ryan's. At that visit, she complained of dizziness,[8] chronic headaches, and weight problems. Dr. Russo's notes from that date also indicate that she "continues *1045 to have severe back pain with reduced motion."

Ms. Lee returned to Dr. Russo on July 2, 2003, approximately ten days after the June 23, 2003 accident. At that visit, she reported that she had recently slipped and hit her head and that she had been taken to the Emergency Room. Her chief complaints on July 2 centered around her headaches, which Dr. Russo opined could have been caused by her pre-existing cervical disc disease, by a sinus infection,[9] or by muscle spasms; dizziness, which Dr. Russo testified could be caused by medication she was taking, a concussion, or middle ear pathology and neck pain. Based on her complaints of pain, Dr. Russo increased the dosage of the pain medication she was taking prior to the accident, gave her a shot of Toradol for pain, and also did trigger-point injections for muscle spasms in the trapezius area. While Dr. Russo admitted that muscle spasms in the trapezius area could be caused by trauma to the neck, he said that it is "fairly nonspecific," and it did not appear that there was an "acute marked change" in Ms. Lee's status at the July 2 visit compared with the visit five days prior to her accident. He stated that "Ms. Lee is a very hysterical patient. And it's . . . hard to figure out where her discomfort is coming from. . . . [S]he did have chronic pathology before the fall, and she continues to have chronic pathology afterwards. It's hard to say what, if any, impact the fall made on her functional status." Ms.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
960 So. 2d 1042, 2006 La.App. 1 Cir. 1400, 2007 La. App. LEXIS 873, 2007 WL 1299663, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lee-v-ryans-family-steak-houses-inc-lactapp-2007.