Negligence - Impulse Display

The plaintiff slipped and fell on a puddle of liquid near a checkout counter inside a Wal-Mart Store. Surveillance revealed that an unsupervised child had poured a bottle of liquid bubbles onto the floor in the area less than two minutes before the plaintiff slipped and fell. The child had picked up the bubbles from an “impulse display” near the registers.

In order to recover in such a case, the plaintiff must show the existence of a duty of care; that the defendant failed to conform to that standard of care; a causal connection between the defendant’s conduct and the plaintiff’s injury; and actual loss or damages. The standard of care towards a business invitee, which the plaintiff was at the time of the fall, is the highest duty owed to an entrant upon land.

The court found Restatement (Second) of Torts § 344 controlling where the business invitees suffer harm caused by a third person or as a result of the negligence of the possessor of the land. In order to prove liability, the plaintiff was required to prove that Wal-Mart either helped to create the dangerous condition, or had actual or constructive notice of the condition.

The court determined that Wal-Mart had designed the “impulse display” to encourage children to pick up merchandise. Therefore, a jury could reasonably find that it was foreseeable that placing liquids on the display could result in spills and that Wal-Mart therefore had created a dangerous condition.

Vasquez v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., (ED.Pa., 8/5/10, No. 09-2609)