Ex parte Travis, WINN-DIXIE

• Decision Date: 05 February 1982
• Docket Number: WINN-DIXIE
• Citation: 414 So.2d 956
• Parties: Ex parte Bill Shirley TRAVIS. In reKWIK CHEK v. Bill Shirley TRAVIS. 80-650.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 956

414 So.2d 956

Ex parte Bill Shirley TRAVIS In re WINN-DIXIE KWIK CHEK v. Bill Shirley TRAVIS.

80-650.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

Feb. 5, 1982.

Rehearing Denied April 9, 1982.

Augusta E. Wilson, Mobile, for petitioner.

Daniel A. Pike of Sintz, Pike, Campbell & Duke, Mobile, for respondent.

JONES, Justice.

We granted the petition for certiorari to review the Court of Civil Appeals', 414 So.2d 954, reversal of a "slip-and-fall" case on a sufficiency of the evidence ground.

The facts, as stated in the Court of Civil Appeals' opinion, are summarized as follows:

In June of 1978, Plaintiff Bill Travis slipped, fell, and was injured while pushing a grocery cart in the produce section of Defendant's store. At trial, Plaintiff testified that he saw a brown paper bag on the floor behind him immediately after he fell and that the bag had dirt and a footprint on it. The trial judge, ore tenus, found for Plaintiff, but the Court of Civil Appeals reversed, holding, in part:

"In the instant case ... plaintiff offered no evidence that the defendant had actual notice of the article allegedly causing the slip being on the floor at the time of the incident. Likewise, he offered no evidence from which it might be inferred that defendant was delinquent in not discovering and removing the offending article. See, Delchamps, Inc. v. Stewart, [47 Ala.App. 406, 255 So.2d 586, cert. denied, 287 Ala. 729, 255 So.2d 592 (1971) ]. With regard to constructive notice to the defendant, plaintiff argues that his proof of the condition of the brown bag imputes such notice.

"Plaintiff's testimony was that the brown bag had dirt and a footprint on it. Our cases in some instances have allowed the plaintiff to prove negligence on the part of the defendant by showing that the foreign substance was on the floor a sufficient length of time to impute constructive notice to the defendant. S. H. Kress & Co. v. Thompson, [267 Ala. 566, 103 So.2d 171 (1957) ]. In those instances it was not necessary for the plaintiff to enter direct evidence as to the length of time a foreign substance had remained on the floor; the trier of fact was able to infer the length of time from the nature and condition of the foreign substance. Foodtown Stores, Inc. v. Patterson, [282 Ala. 477, 213 So.2d 211 (1968) ]; Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Popkins, 260 Ala. 97, 69 So.2d 274 (1953). Having reviewed those cases where, from the condition of the foreign substance, the trier of fact imputed constructive notice to the defendant, we find that the evidence of such condition in this case provides no reasonable inference as to the length of time the bag was on the floor prior to plaintiff's fall. That a paper bag, unnoticed by the plaintiff prior to his fall, had dirt and a footprint on it does not tend to show that it had been on the floor any appreciable length of time. In fact, the more logical inference is that the dirt and footprint were caused when Travis stepped, slipped and fell on the bag...." (Emphasis supplied.)

Several general rules of Alabama law are applicable to our consideration of Petitioner's allegations of error.

I. The axiomatic ore tenus rule guides an appellate Court's review of the factual conclusions of a trial court. Southern States Life Insurance Co. v. Allan, 38 Ala.App. 467, 87 So.2d 439 (1956).

II. A reviewing court may not re-determine the inferences to be drawn from the evidence. Elba Wood Products, Inc. v. Brackin, 356 So.2d 119 (Ala.1978). This rule obtains "regardless of any view the [appellate court] may have as to the weight of the evidence and the [appellate court] must allow such reasonable inferences as the [fact-finder] was free to draw, not inferences which the [appellate court] may think the more proper." Carraway Methodist Hospital v. Pitts, 256 Ala. 665, 57 So.2d 96 (1952).

III. The function of the appellate court, then, in a case tried without a jury, is to ascertain whether there is any credible, legal evidence from which the trial judge was reasonably able to draw his inferences. Hayes v. Kennedy, 292 Ala. 362, 294 So.2d 739 (1974). The "scintilla" rule applies in these cases. Bonds v. Brown, 368 So.2d 536 (Ala.1979).

IV. The duty of an owner or occupant (invitor) to the customers who come upon the premises (invitees) is that of keeping the premises reasonably safe. The invitor is not an insurer of the safety of the invitees. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Bennett, 267 Ala. 538, 103 So.2d 177 (1958).

V. The principle of res ipsa loquitur has no application to slip-and-fall cases. The plaintiff must show both the negligence of the invitor and that such negligence proximately caused the plaintiff's injury. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Bennett, supra.

To summarize these propositions, we restate the familiar: Where the evidence is sufficient to support reasonable inferences which would impose liability and others which would deny liability, and where the factfinder accepts the inferences favorable to one side of the litigation, the appellate court may not substitute its judgment for that of the factfinder as to the reasonableness of the inferences drawn. ¹

The ultimate issue, then, is whether the evidence, taken most strongly in the plaintiff's favor, supports a reasonable factual inference consistent with the plaintiff's theory of the defendant's negligence. If not, the plaintiff has failed to make out a prima facie showing of negligence, thus stripping the trial judge of his factfinding prerogative.

We hold that the evidence here was sufficient to support the trial judge's factual findings in favor of Plaintiff; thus, we reverse and remand.

The trial court and the appellate court, relying on the same precedential "slip-and-fall" decisions, came to contrary conclusions. While on the surface the case law seems less than altogether harmonious, a brief comparison of several of the apparently inconsistent cases reveals that the holdings are distinguishable on their facts, though, admittedly, their language is often confusing.

In Britling Cafeteria v. Naylor, 254 Ala. 84, 47 So.2d 187 (1950), the plaintiff found a bean on her shoe after falling. No evidence of a foreign substance on the defendant's floor, before or after the plaintiff's fall, was introduced into evidence. Reversing a plaintiff's judgment, the Supreme Court stated:

"Mere proof that the injury could have happened in an alleged way does not warrant the conclusion that it did so occur, where it can with equal propriety be attributed to some other cause from the same proof. Alabama Power Co. v. Pierre, 236 Ala. 521, 183 So.2d 665."

Britling Cafeteria v. Naylor, 254 Ala. 84, at 86, 47 So.2d 187.

That the Naylor holding is correct is hardly debatable. Because of the remoteness of time between the incident of the plaintiff's fall and her discovering the bean on her shoe, clearly, the plaintiff's case rests purely on speculation as to causation. Instead of basing its holding on the "speculative and conjectural" rationale, however, the Naylor Court employed the confusing "with equal propriety be attributed to some other cause" language. ² Taken literally, this language says the plaintiff bears the heavy, if not impossible, burden of excluding all reasonable inferences inconsistent with the plaintiff's theory of recovery; or, at least, the probabilities must be unequal and in favor of the plaintiff's claim.

Taken to its ultimate conclusion, of course, this proposition, in its practical application, would eliminate the factfinding function of the jury. At any rate, the 50/50 (with equal probability) concept is violative of the "any credible, legal evidence," or "scintilla," rule; yet, it undoubtedly led to the later "more logical inference" language in Thompson, infra, as well as the repetition of this identical language by the Court of Civil Appeals in the instant case. While the "with equal probability" and the "more logical inference" language may well be appropriate as an appellate standard for rejecting a challenge to the propriety of the factual determinations at trial, each expression is inappropriate to characterize the plaintiff's burden of proof standard. ³

A plaintiff's judgment in F. W. Woolworth v. Ney, 239 Ala. 233, 194 So. 667 (1940), was reversed where the evidence showed that a banana peel on which the plaintiff slipped and fell was dark brown, dirty and crushed and that the area had not been swept for two hours. Ney, however, was distinguished eighteen years later in Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Bennett, 267 Ala. 538, 103 So.2d 177 (1958), on the basis that "[i]n the Ney case the offending substance was a banana peel in a ten-cent store, a substance evidently dropped by a customer and not something which might be expected to be found on the floor of such a business." Bennett at 540, 103 So.2d 177. Moreover, in Bennett, the foreign substance was "vegetable matter in a grocery store. Customers, as well as employees, in a grocery store are likely to be handling and carrying vegetables and dropping matter on the floor. It is a hazard of the business and on the store rests the burden to be on the alert for such hazards." Bennett at 540, 103 So.2d 177.

The trial court in the three "A&P" cases (Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Weems, 266 Ala. 415, 96 So.2d 741 (1957); Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Popkins, 260 Ala. 97, 69 So.2d 274 (1953); and Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Bennett, supra), applying a consistent standard of review, found in each case an evidentiary basis for an inference as to the defendant's negligence. These cases are summarized in Bennett:

"The Popkins and the Weems cases held that from the condition of the offending substance upon the floor of the place of business, it could be inferred by the jury that the substance had been on the floor long enough for the defendant, in the exercise of reasonable diligence, to have noticed it and had it removed. We are unable to rationalize...