Collins v. Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health Sys., Inc.

• Decision Date: 21 February 2020
• Docket Number: NUMBER 2019 CA 0577
• Citation: Collins v. Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health Sys., Inc., 298 So.3d 191 (La. App. 2020)
• Parties: Tina COLLINS v. FRANCISCAN MISSIONARIES OF OUR LADY HEALTH SYSTEM, INC. d/b/a St. Elizabeth Hospital
• Court: Court of Appeal of Louisiana

298 So.3d 191

Tina COLLINS

v.FRANCISCAN MISSIONARIES OF OUR LADY HEALTH SYSTEM, INC. d/b/a St. Elizabeth Hospital

NUMBER 2019 CA 0577

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, First Circuit.

Judgment Rendered: FEBRUARY 21, 2020

William Roy Mustain, III, Metairie, LA, Counsel for Plaintiff/Appellant, Tina Collins

Kelsey A. Clark, Christopher A. Mason, Douglas Kent Williams, Baton Rouge, LA, Counsel for Defendant/Appellee, Franciscan Missionaries of Our, Lady Health System Inc., D/B/A, St. Elizabeth Hospital

BEFORE: WHIPPLE, C.J., GUIDRY, AND BURRIS¹ , JJ.

WHIPPLE, C.J.

In this slip-and-fall case, plaintiff, Tina Collins, appeals a judgment of the trial court granting defendant's motion for summary judgment and dismissing plaintiff's claims with prejudice.For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The underlying suit arises from a slip-and-fall incident that occurred on June 7, 2016, at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Gonzales, Louisiana.On the date of the incident, Mrs. Collins was visiting her husband, who was a patient at the hospital.Around 9:55 p.m., Kari Nemmo, a housekeeper at St. Elizabeth, placed a three-foot-tall warning cone near the middle of the hallway by the second floor nurse's station and proceeded to mop the left side of the hallway.²Ms. Nemmo then walked down the hallway to continue mopping.A few minutes later, at about 10:02 p.m., Mrs. Collins was walking with her step-son and his family near the same nurse's station.As she entered the hallway that Ms. Nemmo was mopping, she slipped and fell into the warning cone previously placed in the hall by Ms. Nemmo.

Mrs. Collins subsequently filed a petition for damages against Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System, d/b/a St. Elizabeth Hospital, hereinafter referred to as "St. Elizabeth,"³ alleging that St. Elizabeth was negligent for, among other things, allowing a hazardous condition to exist despite knowledge of its presence, failing to warn plaintiff of the hazardous condition on the floor, and thereby causing her to sustain injuries to her knee and back.

After answering the petition, St. Elizabeth filed a motion for summary judgment seeking dismissal of Mrs. Collins's claims with prejudice.St. Elizabeth argued that summary judgment was proper because Mrs. Collins would not be able to satisfy her burden of proof at trial as St. Elizabeth acted reasonably under the circumstances by adequately warning the public of a potentially wet floor.Mrs. Collins opposed the motion for summary judgment, contending that St. Elizabeth did not act reasonably under the circumstances because it should have placed more cones in the area that was potentially wet and that a reasonable jury could conclude that St. Elizabeth's actions were not reasonable.

After a hearing on the motion, the trial court took the matter under advisement and subsequently issued written reasons for judgment on September 5, 2018.In its written reasons, the trial court found that St. Elizabeth exercised reasonable care under the circumstances and granted the summary judgment, dismissing Mrs. Collins's claims with prejudice.On September 12, 2018, the trial court signed a judgment in accordance with its reasons, ordering each party to bear their respective costs.

Mrs. Collins then filed the instant appeal contending: (1) that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment where St. Elizabeth acted unreasonably under the circumstances and (2) that genuine issues of material fact remain that preclude summary judgment in this matter.

DISCUSSION

The summary judgment procedure is designed to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action, except those disallowed by LSA-C.C.P. art. 969; the procedure is favored and shall be construed to accomplish these ends.LSA-C.C.P. art 966(A)(2).After an opportunity for adequate discovery, summary judgment shall be granted if the motion, memorandum, and supporting documents show that there is no genuine issue as to material fact and that the mover is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.LSA-C.C.P. art. 966(A)(3).Appellate courts review summary judgments de novo , using the same criteria that govern the trial court's consideration of whether summary judgment is appropriate.Smith v. Northshore Regional Medical Center, Inc., 2014-0628, (La. App. 1st Cir.1/26/15), 170 So. 3d 173, 176.

In ruling on a motion for summary judgment, the court's role is not to evaluate the weight of the evidence or to make a credibility determination, but instead to determine whether or not there is a genuine issue of material fact.Hines v. Garrett, 2004-0806(La.6/25/04), 876 So. 2d 764, 765(per curiam);Penn v. CarePoint Partners of Louisiana. L.L.C., 2014-1621(La. App. 1st Cir.7/30/15), 181 So. 3d 26, 30.A genuine issue is one as to which reasonable persons could disagree; if reasonable persons could reach only one conclusion, summary judgment is appropriate.Hines, 876 So. 2d at 765-66.A fact is "material" when its existence or nonexistence may be essential to plaintiff's cause of action under the applicable theory of recovery.Smith v. Our Lady of the Lake Hospital. Inc., 93-2512(La.7/5/94), 639 So. 2d 730, 751.Simply put, a "material" fact is one that would matter at a trial on the merits.Any doubt as to a dispute regarding a material issue of fact must be resolved against granting the motion and in favor of a trial on the merits.Smith v. Our Lady of the Lake Hospital, Inc., 639 So. 2d at 751.

The burden of proof rests with the mover.LSA-C.C.P. art. 966(D)(1).Nevertheless, if the mover will not bear the burden of proof at trial on the issue that is before the court on the motion for summary judgment, the mover's burden on the motion does not require him to negate all essential elements of the adverse party's claim, action, or defense, but rather to point out to the court the absence of factual support for one or more elements essential to the adverse party's claim, action, or defense.The burden is on the adverse party to produce factual support sufficient to establish the existence of a genuine issue of material fact or that the mover is not entitled to judgment as a matter of law.LSA-C.C.P. art. 966(D)(1).

Whether a particular fact in dispute is material can be seen only in light of the substantive law applicable to the case.Larson v. XYZ Insurance Company, 2016-0745, (La.5/3/17), 226 So. 3d 412, 417.The substantive law applicable in this case is tort law.Smith v. Northshore Regional Medical Center, Inc., 170 So. 3d 173 at 176.Every act of man that causes damage to another obliges him by whose fault it happened to repair it.LSA-C.C. art. 2315.To the extent that the parties rely on merchant slip-and-fall cases, we note that the legislature has not specifically addressed the burden of proof applicable in a slip-and-fall claim against a hospital.Consequently, jurisprudence addressing the burden placed on a hospital is not affected by the statute governing merchant liability for slip-and-fall claims found at LSA-R.S. 9:2800.6.Terrance v. Baton Rouge General Medical Center, 2010-0011(La. App. 1st Cir.6/11/10), 39 So. 3d 842, 844, writ denied, 2010-1624 (La.10/8/10), 46 So. 3d 1271.Accordingly, because the hospital is not a "merchant,"we examine the hospital's duty in light of the facts of this case under a negligence theory of liability.

Under a negligence standard, a hospital owes a duty to its visitors to exercise reasonable care for their safety, commensurate with the particular circumstances involved; but the duty owed is less than that owed by a merchant.Toussaint v. Baton Rouge General Medical Center, 2018-0029, (La. App. 1st Cir.6/4/18), 251 So. 3d 1151, 1154, writ denied, 2018-1107 (La.10/15/18), 253 So. 3d 1301.The determination of whether the measures taken by the hospital to eliminate the risk were reasonable is a question of fact.Toussaint, 251 So. 3d at 1154.Thus, as the mover on the motion for summary judgment, St. Elizabeth had the burden of showing that there was no genuine issue of material fact regarding its lack of negligence.SeeLSA-C.C.P. art. 966(D)(1);Smith v. Northshore Regional Medical Center, Inc., 170 So. 3d at 176.

In support of its motion for summary judgment, St. Elizabeth offered the original petition, a clip of the video footage with corresponding screenshots of the moments leading up to the incident, a photograph of a model warning cone, and excerpts from the depositions of Mrs. Collins and Ms. Nemmo, contending this evidence shows that the hospital acted reasonably to discover and correct the potentially dangerous condition on the floor and that Mrs. Collins simply failed to see the warning cone because she was not paying attention to the walkway in front of her.

St. Elizabeth points out that although there is only one "wet floor" warning cone shown in the video footage, Ms. Nemmo took a stack of cones down the hallway with her and placed them throughout the hall, as reflected in her testimony.The video footage shows her placing the first cone near the middle of the entrance to the hall and then rolling the stack of remaining cones down the hallway.After placing the cones in the hallway and in accordance with her training, Ms. Nemmo mopped only the left side of the floor.The video footage shows, and Ms. Nemmo so testified, that after mopping this area, she continued mopping down the hallway, out of sight of the area where Mrs. Collins fell.The video shows that approximately four-and-a-half minutes after Ms. Nemmo mopped the entrance to the hallway, Mrs. Collins and her family walked up to the spot where Ms. Nemmo mopped.Ms. Collins then slipped into the cone, making contact with it.

In further support of its motion, St. Elizabeth notes that Mrs. Collins testified more than once that the cone was present, that the hospital provided a warning, but that she did not actually see the warning.

In opposition to the motion, Mrs. Collins also offered and relied...