Court Opinion

ID: 9590042
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:51:04.474009+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:05:01.830235
License: Public Domain

Judge Smith
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
While I wholeheartedly agree with the majority that the accident report should have been produced, I dissent from that portion of the opinion which deals with defendant Hospital’s tort liability for Cook’s slip and fall.
It is well-settled in North Carolina that a business is not an insurer of its premises. Rone v. Byrd Food Stores, 109 N.C. App. 666, 669, 428 S.E.2d 284, 285 (1993); Hull v. Winn-Dixie Greenville, Inc., 9 N.C. App. 234, 236, 175 S.E.2d 607, 609 (1970). The doctrine of res ipsa loquitur does not apply to slip and fall cases; that is, no inference of negligence arises from the mere fact of an accident or injury. Skipper v. Cheatham, 249 N.C. 706, 709, 107 S.E.2d 625, 628 (1959). Thus, defendant Hospital’s duty to plaintiff Cook was that of “ ‘ordinary care to keep [the Hospital] in a reasonably safe condition... and to give warning of hidden perils or unsafe conditions insofar as they c[ould] be ascertained by reasonable inspection and supervision.’ ” Rone, 109 N.C. App. at 669, 428 S.E.2d at 285-86 (quoting Raper v. McCrory-McLellan Corp., 259 N.C. 199, 203, 130 S.E.2d 281, 283 (1963)).
In the instant case, there is simply no evidence, other than speculation based on inference, that the Hospital should have been aware of the alleged wet spot prior to Cook’s fall. Plaintiff Cook’s testimony reveals that his left foot slipped as he took his first step into the SICU — approximately thirty inches into the SICU doorway. By all accounts, there was a “Wet Spot” sign in the doorway of Room 6— over six feet from where plaintiff fell — just prior to plaintiff Cook’s fall. Not a single witness testified to the contrary. After Cook’s fall, the “Wet Spot” sign had moved outward toward the hall, in the vicinity of Room 7.
Even given the benefit of the doubt of all the evidence to plaintiffs, I fail to see how the pre-fall location of the sign — in a room door*627way, two doors down and five-to-six-feet from where the fall initiated — could constitute notice of an entryway wet spot to defendant Hospital. Where the sign was located after the fall is irrelevant to such a question.
The majority’s after-the-fact determinations, addressed in the language of negligence, are really no more than a sub silentio application of the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur. A fact such as the housekeeper mopping Room 6 (whom we note, specifically denied spot-mopping in the hall on this occasion), two doors down from the SICU entryway, tells us nothing about the condition of the SICU entryway. One must ask the question, if the housekeeper had placed the sign in Room 10, rather than Room 6, would the majority’s inferences still obtain? What the majority is really saying is that, because a housekeeper mopped a room two doors down from where the doctor slipped and fell and there was a wet spot sign in that doorway, the Hospital must have caused a wet spot (or should have discovered it) in the SICU entryway over two yards away in another location. This is the exact inference of negligence from injury disclaimed by the Skipper Court. Id. at 709, 107 S.E.2d at 628.
Moreover, even if we were to assume the existence of a wet spot at the entryway, plaintiffs’ case is still deficient. As the majority correctly states, an invitee cannot recover “unless he can show that the unsafe or dangerous condition had remained there for such length of time that the inviter knew, or by the exercise of reasonable care should have known, of its existence.” Long v. National Food Stores, Inc., 262 N.C. 57, 60, 136 S.E.2d 275, 278 (1964) (emphasis added). The majority is virtually silent on this duration issue, save for this statement: “[B]ecause of the presence and location of the sign . .. circumstantial evidence permits the inference that defendant had knowledge the floor was wet.” I submit that no evidence exists as to how long the alleged entryway wet spot existed prior to Cook’s fall.
Once again, though, the majority hangs its hat on the facts that Room 6 was mopped and that a sign was placed in that room’s doorway. From this, the majority bootstraps the issues of: Actual or constructive notice of the wet spot, duration of the wet spot, and proximate cause. In essence, if a business mops in one discrete location, it becomes the insurer of all falls in all other tangential locations. I cannot concur in such an analysis. See Skipper, 249 N.C. at 709, 107 S.E.2d at 628 (A business is “not [an] insurer[] of the safety of [its] customers.”).
*628Simply put, I do not find the post-fall location of the sign relevant to the issues of notice, duration of the wet spot, or whether defendant Hospital should have discovered the alleged wet spot upon reasonable inspection. Without competent evidence on these issues, a jury could not have found defendant Hospital negligent. Having failed to present competent evidence addressing necessary elements of their tort claim, plaintiffs’ case is ipso facto fatally deficient. Therefore, in my opinion, the trial court correctly granted defendant Hospital’s Rule 50(b)(1) motion. For these reasons,
I dissent.