Mall Liable For Restaurant’s Spilled Grease
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The North Carolina Court of Appeals has ruled that a Salisbury shopping mall is liable for injuries suffered by a shopper who slipped on a greasy, slippery substance while walking toward the mall’s public restrooms. The Court based its ruling on the fact that the management of the mall had actual knowledge of prior greasy spills left on the floor a few weeks earlier by a restaurant in the mall.
The evidence showed that weeks prior to the shopper’s fall, the Defendant mall was notified of spills of greasy substances in the hallway leading from a restaurant in the mall to the mall exit. A trail of this greasy substance led from the inside of the restaurant’s kitchen, down the hallway and out the mall’s back door leading to a garbage dumpster.
The Court ruled that the mall had constructive notice of the greasy spill upon which the Plaintiff slipped and fell and that therefore the mall is negligent in failing to protect mall shoppers from this dangerous condition.
The injured shopper broke her leg in the fall. Her doctors testified that as a result of the fall the shopper would eventually require knee replacement surgery at an estimated cost of $25,000.00. The jury found the mall and the restaurant liable for their negligence and awarded the Plaintiff $175,000.00.
In affirming the Trial Court, the Court of Appeals wrote: “All owners and occupants of land have duty to exercise reasonable care in the maintenance of their premises for the protection of lawful visitors.”...“where the dangerous condition is created by a third party, a Plaintiff injured thereby cannot recover unless he can show that the dangerous condition had remained there for such a length of time that the owner or occupant knew, or by the exercise of reasonable care should have known of its existence. Evidence that the dangerous condition existed on the premises before the fall can reinforce a finding of constructive notice. If a Defendant has notice about a dangerous condition, it becomes foreseeable that a Plaintiff could be harmed by the condition. As such, the Defendant had a duty to exercise reasonable care to keep Plaintiff safe.”
The Court went on to explain that the mall should have known that the restaurant might leave greasy substance on the hallway since it had done so in recent weeks. The Court ruled that the mall breached its duty to the shopper when it allowed the greasy substance to remain on the hallway floor leading to the public restroom.