$127,000 Settlement for Slip and Fall Injury at a Cook Out Fast Food Restaurant
Our client and two friends stopped by a Middle Tennessee Cook Out for some lunch. After she ordered food, she started walking near the soda machines when she suddenly slipped on a greasy floor and fell. She slipped and fell so hard, the cup in her hand flew to the ground and her credit card flew across the floor.
Our client felt immediate pain on her right side and sat down on a nearby bench. She noticed her shoes had a build up of grease and started sliding her foot back and forth in an effort to remove the substance. As she gathered herself, an independent witness came up and told her that she told Cook Out staff about the dangerous condition on the floor after she had slipped herself. About 10 or 15 minutes after the fall, a Cook Out employee mopped the area and a manager completed an incident report.
Our client had a lot of arm pain. So, she went to Tennessee Orthopaedic Alliance for a consultation. She was diagnosed with right shoulder rotator cuff tear and impingement. As a result of these diagnoses, surgery was required and she had mini open rotator cuff repair and arthroscopic subacromial decompression. She required follow-up physical therapy and missed a substantial amount of time from work.
Nationwide Insurance who insured this Cook Out location, denied liability. They argued that there was a wet floor sign where our client fell. In fact, they had a video of her falling and hitting the wet floor sign!
A Wet Floor Sign Alone Does not Satisfy The Standard of Care Requirement
According to well-established Tennessee law, a wet floor sign does not “necessarily immunize a defendant from premises liability.” Heggs v. Wilson Inn Nashville-Elm Hill, Inc. M2003-00919-COA-R3-CV (2005). In Heggs, a hotel placed a wet floor sign out in front of an elevator and the Plaintiff saw it and still proceeded to walk on wet tile and fell. The court still found for the Plaintiff, in part, because the “wet floor sign is out even when the tile is completely dry.”
Our investigation found that the wet floor sign was placed out as part of Cook Out’s standard procedures, not to warn of a specific dangerous condition that actually exists. By placing the wet floor sign out as part of its daily operations, we argued that Cook Out implicitly admitted that a dangerous condition existed all the time. We believe that the wet floor sign was to warn of possible water on the floor from a nearby customer sink.
In the course of our investigation, we took pictures that showed the wet floor sign near the sink. We argued that by leaving the wet floor sign up as part of its daily operating procedures, any genuine warning regarding a specific dangerous condition was rendered moot. Cook Out was simply leaving a wet floor sign out to act as a blanket immunity from liability for creating a dangerous condition. Wet floor signs are designed to indicate an actual dangerous condition, not to remain up at all times, regardless if a dangerous condition exists. So, having the wet floor sign up at all times did not provide any actual real warning to consumers.
Our Client Slipped on a Greasy Floor
After asserting that we believed the wet floor sign is designed to protect Cook Out from the hazards of water accumulation from the nearby sink, we showed that our client slipped on a greasy accumulation, which was a distinct and separate dangerous condition from the dangerous condition the sink caused. The wet floor sign was not placed out on the date of the accident to warn patrons of a greasy accumulation. It was designed to protect Cook Out from the dangerous condition created by the sink.
Tennessee law, as laid out in the Heggs case, states that if a wet floor sign is seen by the Plaintiff, if the danger is “either unavoidable or one that given the circumstances the customer is likely to encounter anyway,” the defendant is not immune from liability. Because the Cook Out wet floor sign was a warning for a wet floor (from the sink), and not the more dangerous condition of grease, the accident was unavoidable and/or one that our client was likely to encounter anyway.
Negligent Supervision & Training of its Employees
We claimed that Cook Out trained its employees to place the wet floor sign out in the customer area as part of its daily operating procedures Cook Out’s employees then negligently used a grease mop to mop up the water from the sink, and instead, created a completely separate dangerous condition. A dangerous greasy floor!
We fought against Nationwide to prove liability and all the elements necessary to win the case under Tennessee premises liability law. Before filing a lawsuit, our client asked us to negotiate and Nationwide was interested in that too. We argued for our client’s full economic and noneconomic damages. After making a full recovery and wanting to put the accident behind her, our client accepted $127,000 to settle her claim.
At Weir and Kestner, our Tennessee slip and fall lawyers are here to help you get the compensation you deserve. Contact us online or call our office directly at 615.220.4180 to speak to one of our experienced attorneys today!
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