Court Opinion

ID: 9953504
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-22 13:02:45.21175+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:01:00.356627
License: Public Domain

FIFTH DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
                 STATE OF FLORIDA
                 _____________________________

                      Case No. 5D22-2906
                  LT Case No. 2019-30778-CICI
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DOLGEN CORP, LLC d/b/a
Dollar General,

    Appellant,

    v.

KIMBERLY DOTY, CHRISTOPHER
DOTY, AND KATHY WILLIAMS,

    Appellees.
                 _____________________________

On appeal from the Circuit Court for Volusia County.
Mary G. Jolley, Judge.

Kimberly Kanoff Berman, of Marshall Dennehey, P.C., Fort
Lauderdale, and Peggy S. Bush, of Marshall Dennehey, P.C.,
Orlando, for Appellant.

Brian J. Lee, of Morgan & Morgan, Jacksonville, for Appellees,
Kimberly Doty and Christopher Doty.

No Appearance for Remaining Appellee.

                         March 22, 2024

JAY, J.

     In this slip and fall case, Appellant (“Dollar General”) raises
two issues for our consideration. We affirm on both and write only
to address the first, which is whether the evidence entitled Dollar
General to a directed verdict. We hold it did not.

                                 I.

     On July 3, 2017, a Dollar General store in Port Orange
displayed seasonal merchandise in two “U-boats”—carts shaped
like hotel baggage carriers—outside the store’s entrance. When it
started raining that afternoon, Dollar General employee Barbara
Ralph moved the U-boats indoors and placed a wet floor sign
nearby.

    When the rain stopped, Dollar General employee Robert
Boarder put the U-boats back outside and moved the wet floor sign.
Moments later, Kimberly Doty entered the store. She made it a few
steps inside before she slipped and fell. She later sued Dollar
General for negligence, alleging that “a puddle of water near the
main entrance” caused her to fall.

     The case went to a jury trial. At trial, Boarder testified that
he was the cashier on duty when Doty fell. He believed that the U-
boats “most likely” got wet that day, noting that the rain “was a
fairly heavy downpour.” In Boarder’s view, Ralph put down a wet
floor sign “[p]resumably because [the floor] was wet or could get
wet.” Boarder confirmed that he returned the U-boats to their
outdoor position after the rain stopped. He acknowledged that
when he did so, he “moved [the wet floor sign] off to the side.”

     Kathy Williams, a Dollar General lead sales associate who
was the manager on duty on July 3rd, testified that she completed
an incident report in the immediate aftermath of Doty’s fall. Doty
published this incident report as her first exhibit at trial. Under
the heading, “Cause of Incident,” Williams wrote, “Rain outside
had to [b]ring in wet U-Boats hadn’t gotten wet floor sign down
yet.” Williams testified that if she “wrote th[at] down at the time,”
then it was true.

     John Stein, a Dollar General district manager, was Dollar
General’s designated corporate representative. At trial, Doty
published excerpts from Stein’s deposition. Stein’s testimony
included this exchange:

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    Q [Doty’s counsel]: What is your understanding of what
    caused my client to fall on July 3rd, 2017?

    A [Stein]: Bringing product from outside during a rain.
    Bringing it inside and it leaving water behind
    through the transition.

(Emphasis added).

     Doty testified that when she entered the store on July 3rd, she
made it three or four steps inside before her right foot slipped, and
she fell. She tried to catch herself with her left hand, but it also hit
a wet area and started sliding. Doty further testified that she did
not ask Williams to add any content to the incident report.

     At the close of Doty’s case, Dollar General moved for a directed
verdict, claiming there was no evidence that it knew about the
water on the floor. The trial court denied the motion. The court
suggested that Dollar General’s arguments were aimed at the
weight rather than the sufficiency of the evidence and reasoned
that “the jury has to weigh the incident report collectively with all
of the other evidence in the case.” Ultimately, the jury found Dollar
General liable for Doty’s fall. Dollar General moved to set aside the
verdict and enter judgment for Dollar General, again claiming
there was no evidence showing that it knew about the water on the
floor. The court denied the motion. In this appeal, Dollar General
repeats its arguments about knowledge, maintaining the evidence
warranted a directed defense verdict.

                                  II.

     We review de novo a trial court’s ruling on a motion for
directed verdict. Greenshields v. Greenshields, 312 So. 3d 161, 166
(Fla. 5th DCA 2021).

                                  A.

    When seeking a directed verdict, the movant admits “the
truth of all evidentiary facts, as well as every reasonable
conclusion or inference favorable to [the opposing party] from those

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facts.” See Lancheros v. Burke, 375 So. 3d 927, 929 (Fla. 6th DCA
2023). Therefore, a directed verdict is proper “only when the
evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the non-moving
party, shows that a jury could not reasonably differ about the
existence of a material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment
as a matter of law.” Vitro Am., Inc. v. Ngo, 304 So. 3d 379, 383 (Fla.
1st DCA 2020) (quoting Philip Morris USA Inc. v. Allen, 116 So.
3d 467, 469 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013)). “If there are conflicts in the
evidence or if different reasonable inferences could be drawn from
the evidence, then the issue is a factual one that should be
submitted to the jury and not be decided by the trial court as a
matter of law.” Etheredge v. Walt Disney World Co., 999 So. 2d 669,
671 (Fla. 5th DCA 2008).

      In a slip and fall case involving a transitory substance in a
business, the breach element of the plaintiff’s claim “is ‘statutorily
constrained’ by section 768.0755, Florida Statutes.” Welch v.
CHLN, Inc., 357 So. 3d 1277, 1278 (Fla. 5th DCA 2023) (quoting
Encarnacion v. Lifemark Hosps. of Fla., 211 So. 3d 275, 278 (Fla.
3d DCA 2017)). That statute requires the plaintiff to “prove that
the business establishment had actual or constructive knowledge
of the dangerous condition and should have taken action to remedy
it.” § 768.0755(1), Fla. Stat.

     As Judge Mizelle recently noted, “[a] business owner has
‘actual knowledge’ of a dangerous condition when the owner or one
of its agents ‘knows of or creates the dangerous condition.’”
Eddings v. Target Corp., No. 8:22-cv-02060, 2024 WL 414529, at
*4 (M.D. Fla. Feb. 5, 2024) (quoting Barbour v. Brinker Fla., Inc.,
801 So. 2d 953, 957 (Fla. 5th DCA 2001)). “Although the statute
codifying the actual . . . knowledge requirement was enacted in
2010, Florida’s courts have long recognized the requirement at
common law.” Sutton v. Wal-Mart Stores E., LP, 64 F.4th 1166,
1169 n.1 (11th Cir. 2023); see also Eddings, 2024 WL 414529, at *4
(noting that as to the transitory foreign substance statute, “state
court decisions prior to 2002 or after 2010 are informative”).

                                 B.

     In Barbour, this court vacated the trial court’s entry of a
directed defense verdict in a slip and fall case. Barbour, 801 So. 2d

                                  4
at 955–56, 960. There, the plaintiff slipped on “a roll of toilet paper
with the roller mechanism inside the cardboard core lying on the
floor [of a restaurant’s bathroom].” Id. at 956. “[N]o direct evidence
was introduced which showed that Brinker [the defendant
restaurant] had actual knowledge of the toilet paper roll and roller
mechanism being on the restroom floor.” Id. at 957. “However,
Barbour [the plaintiff] did introduce evidence, which . . . indicated
that the toilet paper dispensers were under the exclusive control
of Brinker.” Id. “This evidence included photographs of the type of
dispenser in use at the time of the accident.” Id. Two witnesses
testified that “a key was needed to unlock the dispenser and
Barbour stated that she found the dispenser open immediately
after her fall.” Id. The restaurant’s manager stated that “cleaning
staff and servers were responsible for filling the dispensers.” Id.

     This court held that because the plaintiff presented evidence
showing that “only the servers, managers, and cleaning contractor
were responsible for changing the toilet paper and knew how to
open the dispenser,” the “jury could have reasonably concluded . . .
that Brinker had actual knowledge of the dangerous condition,
that is the presence of the roller and used roll of toilet paper on the
restroom floor.” Id. For these reasons, a directed verdict for the
defendant restaurant was improper. Id. at 959–60.

     The evidence of actual knowledge in this case is far more
compelling than what precluded a directed verdict in Barbour.
Here, a Dollar General employee placed a wet floor sign near the
U-boats after she brought them inside—“[p]resumably because
[the floor] was wet.” This was consistent with testimony that given
how heavily it was raining, the U-boats were “most likely” wet
when they entered the store. After the U-boats were taken back
outside by Mr. Boarder, he moved the wet floor sign to the side.
The acting store manager authored an incident report in which she
attributed Doty’s fall to wet U-boats and no wet floor sign. And
Dollar General’s corporate representative—the designated
spokesperson for the corporation—testified that Doty’s accident
occurred because product was brought in “from outside during a
rain” and because it left “water behind through the transition.”

   “[F]ar from a rickety construct of tangentially related facts,”
Eddings, 2024 WL 414529 at *4, this evidence, when viewed in a

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light most favorable to Doty, easily created a jury question about
whether Dollar General had actual notice of the dangerous
condition that caused Doty’s fall. See id. (rejecting a retail store’s
motion for summary judgment* in a slip and fall case because the
evidence “would permit a reasonable jury to find that the [plastic
shopping] bag causing [the plaintiff’s] fall was only in his lane
because a [store] cashier handed it out or allowed it to be taken,”
which would qualify as actual knowledge of the hazard). In light of
this, Dollar General’s claim that it was entitled to a directed
verdict—i.e., a defense verdict as a matter of law—falls far short.

                                 III.

     A directed verdict is improper when “there are conflicts in the
evidence or if different reasonable inferences could be drawn from
the evidence” because those conflicts and differences create factual
questions for the jury to answer. Etheredge, 999 So. 2d at 671.
Here, based on the evidence before it, a jury could have reasonably
concluded that Dollar General employees knew of or created the
dangerous condition that caused Doty’s accident. Therefore, the
trial court was correct to deny Dollar General’s motion for directed
verdict.

    AFFIRMED.

KILBANE and PRATT, JJ., concur.

    * Although summary judgment and directed verdict motions

arise at different points in litigation, both challenge the legal
sufficiency of the opposing party’s evidence and claim the movant
is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. See Olsen v. First Team
Ford, LTD, 359 So. 3d 873, 877 (Fla. 5th DCA 2023) (quoting In re
Amends. to Fla. Rule of Civ. Proc. 1.510, 317 So. 3d 72, 75 (Fla.
2021)).

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          _____________________________

Not final until disposition of any timely and
authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or
9.331.
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