Title: Perkins v. WAL-MART STORES, NO. 753

State: iowa

Issuer: Iowa Supreme Court

Document:

525 N.W.2d 817 (1994) Judy A. PERKINS and Douglas K. Perkins, Appellants, v. WAL-MART STORES, INC., STORE NO. 753, d/b/a Wal-Mart Discount City, Appellee. No. 93-213. Supreme Court of Iowa. December 21, 1994. John T. McCoy of Lindeman, Yagla, McCoy & Riley, Waterloo, for appellants. Stephen J. Powell and Samuel C. Anderson of Swisher & Cohrt, Waterloo, for appellee. Considered by HARRIS, P.J., and LARSON, LAVORATO, ANDREASEN, and TERNUS, JJ. LAVORATO, Justice. This slip and fall case comes to us on further review from the court of appeals. Judy A. Perkins and her husband Douglas K. Perkins appeal from a district court order granting Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., Store No. *818 753, d/b/a Wal-Mart Discount City (Wal-Mart) summary judgment in the Perkins' negligence action. The court of appeals affirmed the district court conclusion that no genuine issue of material fact existed on the cause of Judy's fall. Because we disagree, we vacate the court of appeals decision, reverse the district court order, and remand for further proceedings. Judy and her friend Pat Muchmore went shopping at Wal-Mart shortly before closing time. As the pair was making their way down a store aisle, Judy's feet suddenly slipped out from under her and she fell face first on the floor. Pat was in front of Judy and did not see her fall. No one saw Judy fall. When Judy got up, she had sand or dirt particles on her hands. Pat saw the accumulation of dust and dirt on Judy's black outfit. Doug did too when Judy arrived home right after the accident. Judy called Wal-Mart about the accident the next day. Judy filed a negligence action against Wal-Mart. Doug joined in the action with a loss of spousal consortium claim. After answering, Wal-Mart moved for summary judgment. Judy and Doug resisted, but the district court granted the motion. Later, the district court denied Judy's and Doug's motion for reconsideration. When reviewing the propriety of an order granting summary judgment, we follow certain well-established principles. First, summary judgment is proper when there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to the judgment as a matter of law. Second, the moving party has the burden of showing the nonexistence of a material fact issue. Last, a nonmoving party generally cannot rest upon the nonmoving party's pleadings when the moving party has supported the motion. Nevertheless, summary judgment is still not proper if reasonable minds could draw different inferences and conclusions from the undisputed facts. In this respect, summary judgment is like a directed verdict: Every legitimate inference that reasonably can be deduced from the evidence should be given to the nonmoving party. If from these inferences reasonable minds can differ on how the issue should be decided, a fact question is generated. Randol v. Roe Enters., Inc., 524 N.W.2d 414, 415 (Iowa 1994) (citation omitted). We determine whether a genuine issue of material fact exists from the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, admissions on file, and affidavits. Iowa R. Civ.P. 237. In their petition, Judy and Doug alleged the following: The district court explained its reasons for granting the summary judgment this way: In short, the court concluded Judy was unable to establish any reason for her fall that was attributable to Wal-Mart. Judy and Doug maintain that (1) when the summary judgment record is viewed as a whole and (2) they are given every legitimate inference reasonably deducible from the evidence, they have generated a genuine issue of material fact on what caused Judy's fall. Our careful review of the record compels us to agree. In her deposition, Judy responded to an extensive series of accident causation questions: In their depositions, Pat and Doug corroborated Judy's statements about being covered with a sand or dirt substance. Judy fell in the store on a Saturday. Wal-Mart had a written policy that the aisles were to be swept three times each day on weekdays and Saturdays. Despite this policy, two Wal-Mart employees in deposition testimony said that no one was assigned to sweep the floors during the hours the store was open on Saturdays. Employees on that day would only sweep or pick up debris they happened to see on the floor. One employee who was responsible for sweeping and mopping the floors in November 1989 testified that "probably nobody" cleaned the floors after her shift ended on the day before the accident. She also testified that sand tracked into the store would have been about the same color as the floor tile. Our disposition here is largely controlled by a very recent slip and fall decision in which we held that the district court had erroneously discounted the probative value of circumstantial evidence on the cause of the fall. Randol, 524 N.W.2d at 417. In Randol the district court ruled the slip and fall plaintiff had failed to generate a fact issue on causation because she could not say that a drop off between the paved and gravel portion of a parking lot caused her fall. We disagreed, concluding that the plaintiff's "testimony as to where she was when she fell, the nature of the terrain where she fell, and how she fell generate a genuine issue of material fact on proximate cause." Randol, 524 N.W.2d at 417. All of this evidence, of course, was circumstantial. What we said about circumstantial evidence bears repeating here: Id. (citations omitted). Judy and Doug are entitled to every legitimate inference reasonably deducible from the summary judgment record. From these, a reasonable mind could conclude that debris on Wal-Mart's floor caused Judy to fall. Judy's testimony as to how she fell, how startled she was that she had fallen, and the condition of her hands and clothing immediately after the fall are consistent with this conclusion. Other circumstantial evidence supports the conclusion that debris caused Judy's fall. Despite a written policy to the contrary, the three-a-day sweeping was not done. In addition, someone was sweeping near the area where Judy fell. Both facts support a reasonable inference that the area where Judy fell was full of debris. Sand was a part of this debris. Its color blended in with the color of the floor tile. This explains in part Judy's inability to detect what caused her to fall. Her surprise and embarrassment at falling would also tend to explain this inability: She was too surprised and embarrassed to even look. We think this evidence generated a genuine issue of material fact on what caused Judy to fall. A jury could find that the *821 debris caused the fall, a condition directly attributable to Wal-Mart. The district court erred in reaching the opposite conclusion. We therefore vacate the court of appeals decision that affirmed the district court order granting the summary judgment motion. We reverse the district court order and remand for further proceedings. COURT OF APPEALS DECISION VACATED; DISTRICT COURT ORDER REVERSED; REMANDED.