LeBoeuf v. K-Mart Corp.
| Decision Date | 28 July 1989 |
| Docket Number | No. 88-3790,K-MART,88-3790 |
| Citation | 888 F.2d 330 |
| Parties | 28 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 959 Sylvia LEBOEUF and Fred LeBoeuf, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v.CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee. Summary Calendar. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Herbert W. Barnes, Samanie, Barnes & Allen, Houma, La., for plaintiffs-appellants.
Rodney A. Seydel, Jr., Robert I. Seigel, Hoffman, Sutterfield, Ensenat & Bankston, New Orleans, La., for defendant-appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
Before REAVLEY, JONES, and DUHE, Circuit Judges.
Sylvia LeBoeuf slipped and fell in one of the defendant's stores. After a four day trial, the jury returned a verdict for K-Mart Corporation (K-Mart) on the issue of liability. Sylvia and Fred LeBoeuf appeal the jury verdict, certain evidentiary rulings of the district court, and the submission of a special verdict question. Finding no error in the district court's rulings, we affirm its judgment.
On December 1, 1985, Sylvia LeBouef slipped and fell at a K-Mart store in Houma, Louisiana. K-Mart employees were soon on the scene to assist her. A few minutes after the accident, a plastic clothes clip was discovered in the area of Mrs. LeBouef's fall. The precise cause of the fall was never determined by the trial court but evidence was introduced at trial to show that Mrs. LeBouef slipped on the plastic clothes clip.
Witnesses for K-Mart testified extensively concerning the store's inspection, maintenance and safety procedures. Witnesses for the LeBouefs testified that there were still a substantial number of objects on the floor at the end of the day. In addition, an expert witness testified for each party concerning the adequacy of the store's inspection and maintenance procedures.
The trial judge gave the following charge to the jury at the conclusion of the trial:
Once a plaintiff shows that she slipped and fell and was injured due to an object on the floor, the burden shifts to the defendant store operator to go forward with evidence to exculpate itself from the presumption that he was negligent. In order to do this, the store operator is required to prove that his employees did not cause a hazard and that the store exercised such a degree of care that the store operator would have known under most circumstances of a hazard caused by customers. The degree of the store's vigilance must be related to the amount of risk involved in that particular area of the store. The circumstances that may determine the reasonableness of the protective measures include the type and volume of merchandise, the type of display, the floor space utilized for customer service, maintenance procedures, and the type and frequency of inspections which the store routinely requires.
The trial judge then submitted a set of special verdict questions to the jury. The first question asked: "Do you find that the defendant breached a duty of care owed to the plaintiff?" The jury was instructed that if it answered the first question "no" that it was not to proceed to the next question. The jury answered "no" to the first special verdict question and the trial judge entered a verdict for the defendants.
The standard of review we apply is the familiar Boeing standard: a jury verdict will not be overturned unless the facts and inferences point so strongly and overwhelmingly in favor of one party that the court believes that reasonable men could not arrive at a contrary verdict. Boeing Company v. Shipman, 411 F.2d 365 (5th Cir.1969). See also Halphen v. Johns-Manfield Sales Corp., 737 F.2d 462 (5th Cir.1984); Thezan v. Maritime Overseas Corp., 708 F.2d 175 (5th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1050, 104 S.Ct. 729, 79 L.Ed.2d 189 (1984). We state at the outset that the LeBouefs have not met this exacting standard.
The LeBouefs discuss several Louisiana decisions that recognize a defendant's liability for particular inspection and maintenance practices. They essentially argue that Houma K-Mart's inspection and maintenance practices were as bad or worse than those found deficient in those cases. Thus, they argue, K-Mart should have been held liable as a matter of law. That conclusion is flawed for two reasons.
First, many of those cases turn on the fact that the dangerous condition might have been created by the defendant. A reasonable jury could have found that the plastic clothes clip, if that was the cause of Mrs. LeBouef's fall, was dropped by one of K-Mart's patrons. If the jury did so find, then many of the cases cited would be inapposite.
More importantly, however, there was conflicting evidence introduced at trial concerning the adequacy and extent of the inspection and maintenance procedures of the Houma K-Mart. The adequacy of a store's inspection and maintenance procedures is a question of fact that may be affected by the special circumstances of each case such as the type and volume of merchandise sold and the floor surface. Lambert v. Winn-Dixie Louisiana, Inc., 490 So.2d 804 (La.App. 3d Cir.1986); Brown v. Winn-Dixie Louisiana, Inc., 452 So.2d 685 (La.1984). Witnesses for K-Mart testified that their practices were more extensive than those conceded in LeBouefs' brief. 1 Whether or not K-Mart breached its duty of care to Mrs. LeBouef essentially turns on what the jury found to be that store's inspection and maintenance practices. A reasonable jury could have credited K-Mart's witnesses and concluded that the Houma K-Mart did not breach its duty of care.
The LeBouefs also contend that the district court erred in four of its evidentiary rulings. We begin with the applicable federal rules of evidence and our standard of review. Fed.R.Evid. 402 provides in part that "Evidence which is not relevant is not admissible." Fed.R.Evid. 403 provides that:
Although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence.
We review a district court's evidentiary rulings to determine if the district court abused its discretion. Jon-T Chemicals, Inc. v. Freeport Chemical Co., 704 F.2d 1412, 1417 (5th Cir.1983). In addition, Fed.R.Evid. 103(a) provides that an erroneous ruling does not constitute reversible error unless the ruling affected "a substantial right of the party." With this in mind, we shall examine each evidentiary ruling in turn.
The district...
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