Picture this scenario: A woman slips and falls on the floor of your self-service laundry and suffers substantial injury to her back. An ambulance is called to transport the customer to a nearby hospital. The wailing sound of the siren grows fainter and fainter as the ambulance rolls down the street away from your store. And, as that siren sound diminishes, you think more and more about whether you paid your last premium for business premises liability insurance.
What caused the slip and fall? Was it liquid soap left over from a customer’s carelessness three hours earlier? Was it a banana peel dropped on the floor of your laundry by the child of another customer? Did your attendants leave equipment parts on the floor while fixing a machine?
A coin laundry operator has an affirmative duty – as all store owners do – to exercise ordinary care to keep the premises in a reasonably safe condition, and therefore must inspect or take other means to determine the condition of the property. Specially, an owner is liable for harm caused by a dangerous condition if the owner had actual or constructive knowledge.
A plaintiff can establish actual notice when the owner or an employee created the dangerous condition. Some examples would be a spill by an employee or perhaps when an owner or employee removes a fixture but leaves part of it or some debris behind. In these situations, actual notice exists.
A plaintiff can also establish the owner’s notice through “constructive notice,” by arguing that the owner failed to make reasonably regular inspections, which raises an inference that the hazardous condition existed long enough for the owner to have discovered and remedied the situation.
In one case, a man slipped and fell in a puddle of milk next to a refrigerator in a Kmart store in Torrance, Calif., and suffered injuries to his knee, including ligament tears.
In this case, there was no evidence as to how long the milk was on the floor prior to the injury; however, the court nonetheless concluded that evidence of the owner’s failure to inspect the premises within a reasonable period of time was sufficient to allow an inference that the condition was on the floor long enough to give the owner the opportunity to discover and remedy the situation.
How often do you inspect the floor and other surfaces within your laundry for soap spills and other problems? Do you post any signs warning customers to be careful and to clean up their spills?
In a case originating in a San Francisco courtroom, a janitor in the employ of a building maintenance company sought damages for personal injuries he sustained on the premises of a department store to which he was assigned to work.
The plaintiff’s hours of work on Fridays were from 8:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. During his initial hour of work on Fridays, he noted that customers were still in the store. As a result, he confined his work to emptying waste containers. He also felt that his work shoes did not “look well” in front of customers, so he wore his street shoes for the initial hour.
During the course of that first hour, he noticed dust on a ledge between the first and second floors of the department store. The plaintiff started to descend a stairway to this ledge. As he “took his first downward step and before his hand grasped the railing, [his] right foot slipped out from under him, and he fell down the stairway with his hands in the air and his feet before him. He landed on his back.”
A salesperson within the department store came to his aid and “picked up a dry piece of banana peel from the front portion of the step and said, ‘This is what you slipped on.'” According to the plaintiff, either the salesperson or the assistant manager of the store stated, “That’s the darn kids that have been playing around.”
In approving a jury verdict in favor of the plaintiff, the Court of Appeal observed:
“The question is whether, in the circumstances, it can be inferred that a dangerous condition had existed for such a length of time as to justify charging the defendant with lack of ordinary care in failing to discover and remedy it before the plaintiff was injured… It may be conceded that ordinary care in the case of a public market involves a more vigilant outlook than in the case of an apartment house lobby.”
The Court of Appeal also observed that the department store had made no inspection of the stairway since the plaintiff had quit his work at 1:20 a.m. the previous morning.
Bananas, aside from being a good source of potassium, supply a substantial number of lawsuits for review by the courts!
In another matter, originating in a Safeway store in Gridley, Calif., a woman went to the cashier’s stand, got in line with her 10-year-old son, and while standing there, noticed that she had forgotten to get some lemons. She left her son in the line and went back to the produce section to obtain the lemons. “After taking only a step or two, she slipped on a banana and fell.” Shortly thereafter, she “saw a squashed banana on the floor, a mark on the floor, which her shoe had made, and banana on her dress, shoe and hose.”
The Court of Appeal, in ordering the trial court to permit the case to proceed to a full trial, noted that the record showed that no inspection of the area had been made for a period of at least 30 minutes before the accident. The Court concluded that:
“Concededly, a person operating a fruit and vegetable section in a store should… in the exercise of ordinary care, maintain a more vigilant outlook than would be required in the operation of some other type of business where the danger of things falling on the floor upon which a person might easily slip and fall is not so obvious.”
In another case, originating at a gasoline station and parking lot on Grand Avenue in Los Angeles, a woman made a phone call from a public telephone booth on the property. As she stepped out of the booth, “she slipped on an oily spot… and thereby suffered a severe injury to her left ankle.” The incident occurred at approximately 3:30 p.m.; trial testimony indicated that “every morning about 7:30 one of the employees sweeps out the booth – that it receives no other regular attention.” Since the evidence demonstrated that the premises had not been inspected in eight hours, the Court of Appeal instructed the trial court to permit a full trial of the plaintiff’s claim that the owner had constructive notice of the oil spot and failed to eliminate the hazard.
The moral of the story? How much time do you think the judges that considered these cases would give you to inspect your laundry before concluding that you should have discovered, for example, liquid soap on your floor during a busy Saturday?
[This column is intended to provide general information only – not specific legal advice. If you have a question regarding the law, you should contact an attorney.]
