Parker v. Home Depot USA, Inc.
| Decision Date | 16 November 2020 |
| Docket Number | CIVIL ACTION H-19-706 |
| Parties | JASON PARKER, Plaintiff, v. HOME DEPOT USA, INC., Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Texas |
Pending before the court is defendant Home Depot USA, Inc.'s ("Home Depot") motion for reconsideration (Dkt. 19) of the court's order denying summary judgment (Dkt. 18). Plaintiff Jason Parker responded. Dkt. 21. Home Depot replied. Dkt. 22. Having considered the motion, response, reply, and applicable law, the court is of the opinion that the motion for reconsideration should be GRANTED. Further, after reconsidering Home Depot's motion for summary judgment, the court has determined that it should be GRANTED.
Parker is a former Home Depot employee who injured himself at work while attempting to move a water heater during an overnight shift as a freight associate. Dkt. 15 at 7.1 Parker worked at Home Depot for approximately nine months prior to his injury, where his duties included unloading freight from merchandise delivery trucks, stocking freight items on the sales floor, and preparing the store to open. Dkt. 14-1 (sealed); Dkt. 15-1 at 17. Home Depot provided Parker with basic training for his position through training videos on lifting merchandise, cleaning upspills, and using a pallet jack. Dkt. 15-1 at 18.2 Home Depot trained Parker specifically to request help with lifting or moving merchandise if he needed assistance, but he does not recall receiving training as to the maximum amount of weight he should lift on his own before requesting help from others. Id. at 20-21. Parker alleges that he sometimes asked for help from others when something was too heavy to lift on his own and was denied, but he cannot remember any specific time when he asked for help and did not receive it. Id. at 21-22. He also asked three supervisors, including the store's general manager, for additional training and equipment, but he did not receive either. Id. at 29-30, 41-42, 46. When Parker came across an item that he did not know how to move safely, he "just left it alone." Id. at 30.
During Parker's night shift on February 11, 2018, Parker saw a water heater box sticking out into the aisle. Dkt. 15 at 11. The water heater was not heavy. Dkt. 15-1 at 38. Thus, Parker believed he could safely move the box back into its bay, so he did what he "normally" did—he did not lift the box, but he put his foot at the bottom of the box and turned the box from side to side in an attempt to move it. Id. at 32, 87. He then felt a sharp pain in his groin area, which was eventually diagnosed as a hernia and ultimately required corrective surgery. Dkt. 15 at 12. He also suffered a lower back injury for which he had a separate surgery. Dkt. 15-1 at 55-56, 74-75.
On September 6, 2018, Parker filed a lawsuit against Home Depot in the 151st Judicial District Court of Harris County, Texas, alleging that his injuries were caused by Home Depot's negligence. Dkts. 1, 1-2. On February 27, 2019, Home Depot removed the case to this court, asserting that the parties were diverse and the amount in controversy exceeded $75,000. Dkt. 1.On March 27, 2020, Home Depot moved for summary judgment, arguing that it did not owe Parker a duty and, regardless, Parker had no evidence of breach or causation. Dkt. 13. On July 9, 2020, the court denied Home Depot's motion for summary judgment, finding that there was a question of fact as to each element of Parker's negligence claim. Dkt. 18. Home Depot now seeks reconsideration of that memorandum opinion and order. Dkt. 19. The motion for reconsideration is ripe for disposition.
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not formally provide for a motion for reconsideration. Shepherd v. Int'l Paper Co., 372 F.3d 326, 328 n.1 (5th Cir. 2004). A motion to reconsider an interlocutory order is governed by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b), which governs motions to reconsider orders that do not dispose of every claim.3 Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 54(b); see, e.g., Cabral v. Brennan, 853 F.3d 763, 766 (5th Cir. 2017) (); Livingston Downs Racing Ass'n, Inc. v. Jefferson Downs Corp., 259 F. Supp. 2d 471, 474-75 (M.D. La. 2002) (). A motion for summary judgment is aninterlocutory order. See Acoustic Sys., Inc. v. Wenger Corp., 207 F.3d 287, 290 (5th Cir. 2000) (). Accordingly, the court analyzes Home Depot's motion for reconsideration of the court's ruling on its motion for summary judgment under Rule 54(b).
An order governed by Rule 54(b) "may be revised at any time before the entry of a judgment adjudicating all the claims and all the parties' rights and liabilities." Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 54(b). In considering a Rule 54(b) motion, courts may look to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e), which governs a motion to amend a final judgment when the motion is filed within twenty-eight days of the contested judgment. Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 59(e); see Livingston, 259 F. Supp. 2d at 475-76. To obtain relief under Rule 59(e), the movant must show new evidence, new case law, manifest injustice, or a manifest error of law or fact. Arceneaux v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., No. 07-7701, 2008 WL 2067044, at *1 (E.D. La. May 14, 2008). But the standard of review for a Rule 54(b) motion is "typically held to be less exacting" than the standard for Rule 59(e) motions, and the court has broad discretion to revise orders under Rule 54(b). Id. at 475. Under Rule 54(b), the trial court can reconsider and reverse its decision for any reason it deems sufficient. See Austin v. Kroger Tex., L.P., 864 F.3d 326, 336 (5th Cir. 2017).
A court shall grant summary judgment when a "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." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). "[A] fact is genuinely in dispute only if a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party." Fordoche, Inc. v. Texaco, Inc., 463 F.3d 388, 392 (5th Cir. 2006). The moving party bears the initial burden of demonstrating the absence of a genuine issue of material fact. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323, 106 S. Ct. 2540 (1986). If the moving partymeets its burden, the burden shifts to the non-moving party to set forth specific facts showing a genuine issue for trial. Id. The court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-movant and draw all justifiable inferences in favor of the non-movant. Env't. Conservation Org. v. City of Dallas, 529 F.3d 519, 524 (5th Cir. 2008). "Unsubstantiated assertions, improbable inferences, and unsupported speculation are not sufficient to defeat a motion for summary judgment." Brown v. City of Houston, 337 F.3d 539, 541 (5th Cir. 2003).
A. Negligence
To establish a claim for negligence, "a party must establish a duty, a breach of that duty, and damages proximately caused by the breach." Kroger Co. v. Elwood, 197 S.W.3d 793, 794 (Tex. 2006) (per curiam). Whether a duty exists is a threshold question of law, not a question of fact for a jury. Id. "[L]iability cannot be imposed if no duty exists." Id. An employer has a non-delegable duty to provide a safe workplace but is not an insurer of its employees' safety. Brookshire Bros., Inc. v. Lewis, 997 S.W.2d 908, 912 (Tex. App.—Beaumont 1999, pet. denied). "This duty includes an obligation to provide adequate help under the circumstances for the performance of required work." Werner v. Colwell, 909 S.W.2d 866, 869 (Tex. 1995).
Home Depot advances several grounds for relief under Rule 54(b). Dkt. 19. Home Depot contends that Parker failed to establish that Home Depot owed Parker a duty to provide training, supervision, or assistance beyond that already provided. Id. Home Depot also argues that Parker failed to demonstrate that there are questions of material fact as to whether Home Depot breached any duty and whether the alleged breach proximately caused Parker's injuries. Id. Specifically, Home Depot asserts that it had no duty to train Parker about his "ordinary non-dangerous job duties." Dkt. 19 at 7-11. Further, Home Depot contends that 1) it cannot owe a duty to providetraining, supervision, or assistance where there is no evidence that a reasonably prudent employer would provide the aforementioned, and 2) even if there were evidence that Home Depot owed Parker a duty, there is no evidence of breach of that duty. Id. at 7-12.
Parker contends that there are genuine issues of material fact as to whether Home Depot should have provided additional training, supervision, and assistance. Dkt. 21 at 4-9. Parker also argues that he has raised genuine fact disputes as to whether Home Depot's alleged failure to provide the aforementioned proximately caused his injuries, and thus, summary judgment is precluded. Dkt. 21 at 4-9.
Parker's case is similar to Great Atl. & Pac. Tea Co. v. Evans, 142 Tex. 1, 175 S.W.2d 249 (1943). In Evans, the grocery clerk plaintiff sued his employer for negligence after the plaintiff injured himself while carrying a sack of potatoes which weighed approximately 100 pounds. Id. The plaintiff had carried similar sacks of potatoes many times prior to his injury and testified that "he had worked in several grocery stores, and in all of them he had seen clerks and managers indiscriminately carry sacks of potatoes" of the same weight. Id. The Texas Supreme Court held that an employer is not liable for negligence when an employee is injured while "doing...
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