Dajlani v. Wal-Mart Stores E., LP

• Decision Date: 15 November 2021
• Docket Number: 20-12983
• Parties: DENISA DAJLANI, Plaintiff, v. WAL-MART STORES EAST, LP Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan

DENISA DAJLANI, Plaintiff, v. WAL-MART STORES EAST, LP Defendant.

No. 20-12983

United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, Southern Division

November 15, 2021

OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT [13]

LAURIE J. MICHELSON, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE.

Denisa Dajlani was shopping at the Dearborn Walmart, operated by Wal-Mart Stores East, LP, when two three-drawer chests and the top metal shelf holding them up fell off an end-of-aisle display and injured her arm. Dajlani states that the injury has prevented her from continuing to work as a hair stylist.

In time, Dajlani sued Wal-Mart for negligently maintaining a dangerous condition in its store and not exercising due care toward her as a customer. Wal-Mart now seeks summary judgment. Having thoroughly reviewed the summary-judgment record, the Court will GRANT IN PART and DENY IN PART Wal-Mart's motion for summary judgment for the reasons set out below.

I.

A.

Dajlani was shopping at the Wal-Mart store in Dearborn, Michigan with her son the morning of September 18, 2017. (ECF No. 13-1 PageID.135, 164-165.)

Dajlani was looking to purchase a new remote control for her television. (Id. at PageID.167.)

As Dajlani was walking down the main aisle of the store toward the electronics department, two three-drawer plastic chests and metal shelving fell off the end-of-aisle display (an end cap) and hit her arm. (Id. at PageID.167, 169.) As shown below, the drawers were made out of brown plastic rattan and estimated to weigh less than three pounds:

(Image Omitted)

(ECF No. 13-2, PageID.237; ECF No. 15, PageID.451 (image of drawers).) After hitting Dajlani's arm, both the drawers and the metal shelving landed on the floor. (Id. at PageID.172-173; ECF No. 15, PageID.446.) Dajlani's arm was red, numb, and swollen after she was hit. (Id. at PageID.158.) She also was not able to move her fingers and had pain from her shoulder to her fingers. (Id.)

Keith Ford, a Wal-Mart employee, heard the crash and went to see what happened. (ECF No. 15, PageID.446.) Dajlani states that after a Wal-Mart employee (presumably Ford) arrived, he cleaned up the drawers and shelf “in a second.” (ECF No. 13-1, PageID.174.) As the shelf was being reinstalled, however, Dajlani saw that one of the hooks attaching the shelf to the end cap was sideways and that the shelf had not been sturdily hooked into the end cap. (Id. at PageID.180.)

Sara Koolwick and Joshua Spears, two co-managers of the Dearborn Wal-Mart, were in the store the day Dajlani was injured, but neither saw the incident. (ECF No. 13-2, PageID.272; ECF No. 13-3, PageID.295, 302, 308.) Koolwick took a report from Dajlani. (ECF No. 13-2, PageID.240.) And she took pictures of the shelf and drawers that fell on Dajlani-but only after they had been replaced on the end cap. (Id. at PageID.249.) Spears did not see the shelf and drawers either before they had been replaced. (ECF No. 13-3, PageID.295, 302, 308.) Spears stated that Koolwick took the lead on the incident report for Dajlani's accident. (See Id. at PageID.299.)

The report briefly describes that the shelf fell on to the customer's left arm in the “Hardware A.A., ” or hardware action alley. (ECF No. 15, PageID.443; ECF No. 13-2, PageID.241.) Koolwick also filled out a witness statement, but it merely recounts what Dajlani told her and that she observed swelling and bruising on Dajlani's left arm. (ECF No. 15, PageID.445.) Dajlani was certain that she did not hit the display with her shopping cart. (See id.; ECF No. 13-1, PageID.177.) Ford also wrote a witness statement corroborating that he heard a crash and when he arrived, he saw two three-drawer chests and gray shelving on the ground. (Id. at PageID.446.)

Not much happened on Wal-Mart's end after completing the incident report. Koolwick stated that either herself, the department manager, or the asset protection manager would have inspected the display after it had been reinstalled but could not remember who led the inspection or if the cause of the incident was determined. (ECF No. 13-2, PageID.249-250.) Koolwick testified that the one prior time she experienced shelves falling off an end cap was when an electric cart had run into it, causing the shelf to “swing out.” (Id. at PageID.268.) Spears testified that he had never seen a shelf fall off an end cap, but that it was a “very common occurrence” for customers to hit the end cap with a cart and cause the shelves to destabilize. (ECF No. 13-3, PageID.301, 307.) Spears would regularly tell his employees to fix the end caps if he saw the frame was loose or fix them himself. (Id. at PageID.301-302.)

As for Dajlani, after giving her report to Koolwick, she continued shopping. (ECF No. 13-1, PageID.188.) But after she left Wal-Mart and dropped her son off at home, she went to the emergency room. (Id. at PageID.193.) Dajlani claims she is unable to work as a hair stylist due to the pain in her arm from the accident, and that she continues to experience swelling in the area that prevents her from holding her arm up or lifting things with it. (Id. at PageID.126.)

B.

In September 2020, Dajlani filed this action against Wal-Mart, alleging Wal-Mart was negligent in causing her injuries. (ECF No. 1-2.) She brought a premises-liability claim (Count I) and a nuisance claim (Count II). (ECF No. 1-2, PageID.10-12.) Wal-Mart removed the case to federal court based on diversity jurisdiction. (ECF No. 1.)

After discovery, Wal-Mart filed a motion for summary judgment. (ECF No. 13.) Given the clear briefing and record, the Court now considers the motion without further argument. See E.D. Mich. LR 7.1(f).

II.

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56 provides, “The court shall grant summary judgment if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Summary judgment requires the court to view all evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party and is appropriate only if the evidence in the record is so one-sided that no reasonable jury could find for that party. Hawkins v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 517 F.3d 321, 339 (6th Cir. 2008) (citing Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 251-52 (1986)).

III.

The Court will consider Dajlani's premises-liability claim on two theories: a standard negligence theory and then a res ipsa loquitur theory, which Dajlani raised in response to this motion. See Pugno v. Blue Harvest Farms, LLC, 930 N.W.2d 393, 405 (Mich. Ct. App. 2018) (holding that while res ipsa loquitur can apply to premises liability cases, the question of whether it does is answered on a case-by-case basis).

As this is a diversity case, the Court will apply Michigan law. See Carhartt, Inc. v. Innovative Textiles, Inc., 998 F.3d 739, 742 (6th Cir. 2021). When the Michigan Supreme Court has not decided a precise issue, as in this case, the Court is “tasked with predicting how the court would resolve the issue from all relevant data, including decisions of the state appellate courts.” Id.

A.

To prevail on a standard premises-liability claim, Dajlani must prove that (1) Wal-Mart owed her a duty, (2) it breached that duty, (3) the breach was the cause of her injuries; and (4) she was damaged. See Lapczynski v. Walmart Stores, 761 Fed.Appx. 530, 534 (6th Cir. 2019); see also Mouzon v. Achievable Visions, 864 N.W.2d 606, 608 (Mich. Ct App. 2014).

Wal-Mart argues that Dajlani cannot prove breach or causation. Dajlani disagrees.

1.

Wal-Mart contends that it could not have breached its duty to Dajlani because it did not have notice that the end cap was dangerous.

As neither party disputes that Dajlani was a business invitee, Wal-Mart owed “a duty to use reasonable care to protect [Dajlani] from unreasonable risks of harm posed by dangerous conditions” on its premises. See Hoffner v. Lanctoe, 821 N.W.2d 88, 91 (Mich. 2012). Wal-Mart breaches its duty to use reasonable care when it “knows or should know of a dangerous condition on the premises of which the invitee is unaware and fails to fix the defect, guard against the defect, or warn the invitee of the defect.” Id. at 94. In other words, Dajlani must show that Wal-Mart had actual or constructive notice that the shelf on the end cap was unstable.

There is no evidence in the record that Wal-Mart had actual notice of the end cap's instability. Although Koolwick stated that management and other employees conducted inspections, the record is not clear as to when the particular end cap that fell on Dajlani was last inspected. (See ECF No. 13-2, PageID.256 (“End caps and displays can be changed out every day, depending on how fast the item sells;” id. at PageID.273.) Spears similarly does not remember anything pertaining to the specific shelf, including any inspections. (ECF No. 13-3, PageID.301 (“I cannot speak to that specific fixture [sic] and that specific shelf.”).) And Dajlani is unaware of any previous issues or reports involving this end cap. (ECF No. 13-1, PageID.190-191.)

Dajlani argues that Koolwick and Spears' testimony that “they were aware of a propensity of these shelves to become dislodged” shows that Wal-Mart had actual notice of the unstable end-cap. (ECF No. 15, PageID.336.) But a general awareness that conditions could become dangerous is not the same as knowing that conditions are dangerous. If it were, then actual knowledge would be found in almost every premises liability case involving common accidents, like slip-and-falls. And that is not what the case law supports.

And even accepting Dajlani's argument that knowledge that the shelves had a propensity to fall satisfies the actual knowledge test, the testimony does not show that end cap shelves had a “...