Fredrick v. Dolgencorp, LLC

• Decision Date: 27 May 2020
• Docket Number: Case No. 2D18-4621
• Parties: Lindsey FREDRICK, Appellant, v. DOLGENCORP, LLC, d/b/a/ Dollar General Store, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

304 So.3d 36

Lindsey FREDRICK, Appellant,

v.DOLGENCORP, LLC, d/b/a/ Dollar General Store, Appellee.

Case No. 2D18-4621

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.

Opinion filed May 27, 2020

Alexander Brockmeyer and Molly Chafe Brockmeyer of Boyle Leonard & Anderson, P.A., Fort Myers, for Appellant.

Jennifer J. Kennedy of Abbey, Adams, Byelick, & Mueller, L.L.P., St. Petersburg, for Appellee.

CASE, JAMES R., Associate Senior Judge,

In this premises liability case, Lindsey Fredrick appeals from an order granting final summary judgment in favor of Dolgencorp, LLC (Dollar General) on Fredrick's complaint alleging negligence by Dollar General that caused him to slip and fall on a patch of laundry detergent. We reject Fredrick's argument for reversal with respect to its duty to maintain the premises in a reasonably safe condition. However, genuine issues of material fact remain as to whether Dollar General breached its duty to warn Fredrick of the danger posed by the liquid. Accordingly, we reverse the trial court's judgment in favor of Dollar General on that issue and remand for further proceedings.

The following facts are undisputed. A customer dropped a bottle of laundry detergent near the checkout counter in a Dollar General store, causing the detergent to spill on the floor. At the time of the spill, the store manager and another employee were working behind the counter. As soon as the store manager noticed the spill, he left the counter to retrieve cleaning supplies while the other employee continued to check out customers. The manager did not alert the other employee to the spill. Approximately forty-one seconds after the spill, Fredrick entered the store.¹ As he was walking past the counter, Fredrick stepped on the detergent and fell to the ground, sustaining injuries. The fall occurred fifty-one seconds after the spill. Thirty-two seconds after Fredrick's fall and eighty-three seconds after the spill, the store manager returned to the location of the spill with cleaning supplies.

Fredrick filed a negligence complaint against Dollar General, alleging that the store breached its duty of care to Fredrick by failing to maintain the property in a reasonably safe condition and failing to warn Fredrick of the unreasonably dangerous condition posed by the detergent. In response, Dollar General moved for final summary judgment. In the motion, Dollar General argued that despite its actual knowledge of the spill, the approximately one minute between the spill and Fredrick's fall constituted insufficient time for it to remedy the spill as a matter of law. It also argued that the store manager acted reasonably in immediately leaving the scene of the spill to retrieve cleaning supplies to remedy the dangerous condition. Accordingly, it argued that it was entitled to judgment in its favor. Notably, the motion did not address Dollar General's duty to warn Fredrick of the spill.

In response, Fredrick filed depositions of the store manager and the other employee who was working at the register at the time of the spill. The employee working behind the counter testified that she was not notified of the spill by the store manager and that she did not know about it until after Fredrick's fall. She explained that employees have access to sandwich boards that warn customers of wet floors and that one is typically located behind the counter. The store manager admitted that the other employee could have notified Fredrick of the detergent as he walked in the store if he had told her about the spill. He also admitted that he could have quickly walked over to the spill and blocked it off before leaving to retrieve cleaning supplies and that doing so would have been safer than leaving the spill unattended. He admitted that Fredrick's fall was a "preventable slip and fall."

At the hearing on the motion for summary judgment, Dollar General again focused its argument exclusively on its duty to maintain its premises in a reasonably safe condition, arguing that the store manager had insufficient time to remedy the condition. In response, Fredrick emphasized that Dollar General's argument did not sufficiently address its duty to warn him of the danger posed by the detergent. Fredrick's counsel argued that "[t]here's clearly an issue of material fact here, and that is to [sic] Dollar General's duty to warn ... Fredrick of a known dangerous and hazardous condition of which they had actual knowledge that day but made the decision not to warn him." At the end of the hearing, the court granted Dollar General's motion. In its final summary judgment order, the court held that Dollar General "did not have a sufficient opportunity to correct or warn of the dangerous condition." It further found that Dollar General "used ordinary care to remedy the condition." It accordingly entered judgment in favor of Dollar General.² Fredrick timely appealed.

We review the trial court's order granting final summary judgment de novo. Walker v. Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc., 160 So. 3d 909, 911 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014). "In ruling on a motion for summary judgment, the court must draw every possible inference in favor of the party against whom summary judgment is sought." Skipper v. Barnes Supermarket, 573 So. 2d 411, 413 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991). "Summary judgment should only be granted where there is a complete absence of any genuine issue of material fact." Houk v. Monsanto Co., 609 So. 2d 757, 760 (Fla. 1st DCA 1992).

In a negligence case, a defendant moving for summary judgment "must show that there is no negligence or that the sole proximate cause of the injury was the negligence of the plaintiff." Bryant v. Lucky Stores, Inc., 577 So. 2d 1347, 1349 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990). "To establish that there was no negligence, the movant must demonstrate that there is no duty owed to the plaintiff or that it did not breach a duty which is owed." Id. Relevant here, a business owner owes two duties to a business invitee:

(1) he must use reasonable care to maintain the premises in a reasonably safe condition; and (2) he must give the invitee warning of concealed perils which are or should have been known to him, and which are unknown to the invitee and could not be discovered by the invitee even if he exercised due care.

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