Johnson v. Safeway Stores, Inc.
| Decision Date | 22 May 1970 |
| Docket Number | No. 5003.,5003. |
| Citation | 265 A.2d 596 |
| Parties | Vivian J. JOHNSON, Appellant, v. SAFEWAY STORES, INC., C. T. Corporation System, Appellee. |
| Court | D.C. Court of Appeals |
William Clague, Washington, D. C., with whom Francis C. O'Brien and Anthony E. Grimaldi, Washington, D. C., were on the brief, for appellee.
Before FICKLING, KERN and GALLAGHER, Associate Judges.
This is an appeal from a judgment notwithstanding the verdict entered for defendant Safeway in a "trip and fall" case. Plaintiff-appellant was proceeding along the exit side of the check-out stands on her way into the store area to shop. When she passed behind the last of four checkout stands on her left, she attempted to round the corner into the shopping area and, as she proceeded, tripped and fell over a hand basket on the floor. The hand basket was one of a type provided by the store for customers' use in shopping.
According to the usual store procedure, cashiers stacked the hand baskets on the floor to the rear of their check-out counters as customers passed through. The store manager testified that customers sometimes put their baskets into these stacks after they have checked out if requested to do so by the cashier. Periodically, store personnel removed the baskets at the rear of the check-out counters and placed them in two "nesting racks" on the opposite side of the store from where the incident in question occurred.
In announcing judgment notwithstanding the jury verdict for defendant, the trial court stated it had serious misgivings in submitting the case to the jury and, accordingly, had reserved ruling on defendant's motion for directed verdict at the close of all the evidence, heeding the admonitions of the appellate courts in these circumstances.1
The salient considerations here are that plaintiff tripped over a store-provided shopping basket which was on the floor close to the point where a check-out clerk stacked such baskets to the rear of the check-out counter. There was no evidence as to how the basket got there or how long it had been there; and there was no evidence that any store personnel knew it was there. It was clear from the evidence that these baskets are handled both by store personnel in stacking them and by customers while shopping.
Because of these gaps in the evidence, which are not uncommon in "slip or trip and fall" litigation, appellant found it necessary to take the position that the store created the condition causing the fall,2 or that the store procedure in stacking baskets at the end of check-out counters was negligent. None of the testimony adduced warranted the inference that the store had actual or constructive notice that the basket was there. In the absence of that inference the store...
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District of Columbia v. Gandy
...[v. District of Columbia Safeway Stores, Inc., 132 U.S.App.D.C. 117, 120, 406 F.2d 653, 656 (1968)]." Johnson v. Safeway Stores, Inc., D.C.App., 265 A.2d 596, 597-98 (1970). 3. "The essential elements of the tort [of false imprisonment] are (1) the detention or restraint of one against his ......
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Ruml v. Giant Food, Inc.
...permit jury consideration. See Bodenheimer v. National Food Stores, Inc., 255 N. C. 743, 122 S.E.2d 715 (1961); Johnson v. Safeway Stores, Inc., D.C.App., 265 A.2d 596 (1970). See also Rekart v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 81 N.M. 491, 468 P.2d 892 (1970) (no inference of negligence where it had ......
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Smith v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 6268.
...Inc., D.C.App., 288 A.2d 405 (1972); Kincheloe v. Safeway Stores, Inc., D.C.App., 285 A.2d 699 (1972); Johnson v. Safeway Stores, Inc., D.C. App., 265 A.2d 596 (1970); Howard v. Safeway Stores, Inc., D.C.App., 263 A.2d 656 ...