Court Opinion

ID: 9364380
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-19 15:00:33.362471+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:15:37.926904
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-10174    Document: 56-1      Date Filed: 01/19/2023    Page: 1 of 10

                                                    [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 22-10174
                           Non-Argument Calendar
                           ____________________

        VICTORIA CARTER,
                                                       Plaintiff-Appellant,
        versus
        WAL-MART STORES EAST, LP,
        JOHN DOES (1-3),
        ABC CORPORATION (1-3),

                                                   Defendants-Appellees.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Northern District of Georgia
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        2                      Opinion of the Court                 22-10174

                      D.C. Docket No. 1:19-cv-03907-WMR
                           ____________________

        Before WILSON, LUCK, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
        PER CURIAM:
                Victoria Carter sued Wal-Mart Stores East, LP, after she
        slipped and fell in a puddle on the floor of the produce section. The
        district court granted summary judgment in Wal-Mart’s favor and
        denied Ms. Carter’s motion for sanctions. We affirm.
            FACTUAL BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
                Ms. Carter fell while shopping in a Georgia Wal-Mart one
        Saturday evening in June 2018. Wal-Mart had an official policy to
        prevent slip hazards on the floor: employees were supposed to
        conduct an hourly “safety sweep” to look for spills, continuously
        use a push mop to sweep the whole store, and always look for spills
        as they walked down the aisles. But on the night Ms. Carter fell,
        nobody conducted a 7 p.m. safety sweep. Nobody was using the
        push mop, which leaned unmanned against a pole. And the nearest
        employee—Yvonne Simpson—had not been on the lookout for
        spills as she walked through the store.
               A store camera captured the lead up to Ms. Carter’s slip and
        fall. At 6:58 p.m., a young girl spilled some soda on the floor of the
        store’s produce section. At 7:09 p.m.—not quite twelve minutes
        later—Ms. Carter slipped in the soda puddle, fell to the ground, and
        hurt her knees in the process. Ms. Simpson had walked through
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        22-10174               Opinion of the Court                        3

        the produce section several minutes before the soda was spilled,
        but no employee saw or knew about the spill until Ms. Carter fell.

               Ms. Carter sued Wal-Mart under Georgia tort law for negli-
        gently failing to maintain its premises. During discovery, one of
        Wal-Mart’s attorneys contacted Ms. Simpson and got her her to
        sign a declaration saying that she had seen the video of Ms. Carter’s
        accident, that she had inspected the floor of the produce section
        earlier that night, and that she and other employees regularly
        “zoned” the floor to look for spills. Wal-Mart moved for summary
        judgment against Ms. Carter and submitted the declaration in sup-
        port; part of its argument was that it had conducted appropriate
        inspection procedures the night Ms. Carter fell.

               The district court reopened discovery so Ms. Carter could
        depose Ms. Simpson, who testified that she could not read well and
        had not understood the declaration she signed (although she hadn’t
        told Wal-Mart’s lawyer she couldn’t read well). She also testified—
        contrary to the declaration—that she had never seen the video of
        the incident, that she had not looked for hazards when she walked
        through the store, and that it was uncommon for Wal-Mart em-
        ployees to zone the floor.

              After the deposition, Wal-Mart’s counsel withdrew Ms.
        Simpson’s declaration. Ms. Carter, in turn, filed a motion to sanc-
        tion Wal-Mart by striking its answer to the complaint. She argued
        that Wal-Mart had knowingly submitted a false declaration that
        formed a substantial basis for its motion for summary judgment.
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        4                       Opinion of the Court                  22-10174

        Wal-Mart obtained new counsel, and the law firm initially repre-
        senting it instructed the associate involved in the declaration to re-
        port herself to the State Bar of Georgia.

                The district court granted summary judgment and denied
        the motion for sanctions. As to Ms. Carter’s negligence claim, the
        district court found that Wal-Mart could not be held liable for a
        spill that sat for only twelve minutes, regardless of whether Wal-
        Mart employees had followed the inspection procedure before the
        spill occurred. As to the sanctions motion, the district court con-
        cluded that, while Wal-Mart’s counsel had acted unethically, the
        affidavit was irrelevant to its summary judgment decision and
        therefore Ms. Carter could not show prejudice. It denied Ms.
        Carter’s motion for sanctions, but it ordered Wal-Mart’s counsel to
        report filing the affidavit to the State Bar of Georgia. Ms. Carter
        timely appealed.
                             STANDARD OF REVIEW
                We review de novo an order granting summary judgment.
        Patrick v. Floyd Med. Ctr., 201 F.3d 1313, 1315 (11th Cir. 2000). At
        this stage, we “draw[] all inferences in the light most favorable to
        the non-moving party and recogniz[e] that summary judgment is
        appropriate only where there are no genuine issues of material
        fact.” Smith v. Owens, 848 F.3d 975, 978 (11th Cir. 2017) (citing
        Rich v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 716 F.3d 525, 530 (11th Cir. 2013));
        see also Fed. R. Civ. P 56(a). An issue is “genuine” where “a rea-
        sonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party,” and
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        22-10174                Opinion of the Court                          5

        a fact is “material” only if it “might affect the outcome of the suit
        under the governing law.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477
        U.S. 242, 248 (1986).
               We review a district court’s “decision to deny sanctions . . .
        for an abuse of discretion.” Peer v. Lewis, 606 F.3d 1306, 1311 (11th
        Cir. 2010). “A district court abuses its discretion if it applies an in-
        correct legal standard, follows improper procedures in making the
        determination, or bases the decision ‘upon findings of fact that are
        clearly erroneous.’” Id. (quoting Cordoba v. Dillard’s, Inc., 419
        F.3d 1169, 1180 (11th Cir. 2005)).
                                    DISCUSSION
               Ms. Carter argues on appeal that the district court erred in
        granting summary judgment on her negligence claim. She also
        contends that the district court abused its discretion by denying her
        motion for sanctions. We address each issue in turn.
                                  Premises Liability
               Under Georgia law, landowners have an obligation “to ex-
        ercise ordinary care in keeping the premises . . . safe” for guests and
        invitees. Ga. Code Ann. § 51-3-1. A proprietor will be liable in a
        slip and fall case when it has “actual or constructive” knowledge of
        a “hazard [that] caused the plaintiff’s injury.” All Am. Quality
        Foods, Inc. v. Smith, 797 S.E.2d 259, 261 (Ga. Ct. App. 2017). Con-
        structive knowledge of a hazard exists (1) where store employees
        were in the hazard’s “immediate vicinity” and “could have easily
        seen and corrected” it, or (2) where a hazard was present long
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        6                      Opinion of the Court                22-10174

        enough that it would have been “discovered and removed” had the
        proprietor “exercised reasonable care in inspecting the premises.”
        Barbour-Amir v. Comcast of Ga./Va., Inc., 772 S.E.2d 231, 235 (Ga.
        Ct. App. 2015).
               Here, the parties agree that Wal-Mart’s employees did not
        have actual knowledge of the spill that Ms. Carter slipped on. Nor
        does Ms. Carter argue that a Wal-Mart employee was in the “im-
        mediate vicinity” of the spill. See id. The only question is whether
        the twelve minutes between the soda’s spilling and Ms. Carter’s
        slipping was long enough for a reasonable jury to find that Wal-
        Mart would have “discovered and removed” the soda had it “exer-
        cised reasonable care.” See id. Under Georgia law, it was not.
               Georgia courts have consistently held that under ordinary
        conditions, intervals of ten or fifteen minutes are not long enough
        to put a store owner on constructive notice of a spill. In Hartman
        v. Clark, for example, the plaintiff slipped in a restaurant bathroom
        on a puddle that had been there between five and ten minutes. 801
        S.E.2d 66, 67 (Ga. Ct. App. 2017). There, the court explained that
        “[r]egardless of when restaurant employees last inspected the re-
        stroom, this limited period of time” was legally insufficient to give
        rise to constructive knowledge of the spill. Id. at 67–68. The All
        American court also found that a grocery store owner lacked con-
        structive knowledge of a spill that surveillance video showed was
        present for seven minutes before a customer’s fall. 797 S.E.2d at
        262; see also Smith v. Winn-Dixie Atlanta, Inc., 417 S.E.2d 202, 202–
        03 (Ga. Ct. App. 1992) (affirming summary judgment in a slip-and-
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        22-10174               Opinion of the Court                        7

        fall case because the “foreign object had not been present for more
        than 10 to 15 minutes” (marks and citation omitted)); Super Dis-
        count Markets, Inc. v. Clark, 443 S.E.2d 876, 877 (Ga. Ct. App.
        1994) (same).
               Ms. Carter attempts to distinguish Hartman on the grounds
        that the bathroom there was “less trafficked” than the produce aisle
        where she slipped. But Ms. Carter doesn’t point to any evidence
        for that claim. And, more importantly, Georgia courts have not
        distinguished between “cases involving grocery stores, parking
        lots, and restaurants.” Gleaton v. APAC-Georgia, Inc., 491 S.E.2d
        138, 141 (Ga. Ct. App. 1997). In all of those cases, the Georgia
        courts “have found that 15 or 20 minutes was a legally insufficient
        amount of time for a proprietor to discover a foreign substance on
        the floor.” Id.

               Ms. Carter also contends there was a genuine dispute as to
        constructive knowledge because Wal-Mart employees would have
        discovered the spill had they followed the store’s hourly cleaning
        schedule. But the Georgia courts rejected that argument in Hart-
        man. There, as here, the plaintiff argued that “the evidence raise[d]
        factual questions about [the proprietor’s] inspection procedures
        and whether they were followed.” Hartman, 801 S.E.2d at 67. “Re-
        gardless of when restaurant employees last inspected the re-
        stroom,” the Hartman court held, the “limited period of time” that
        the liquid was on the floor “was insufficient as a matter of law to
        hold that [the proprietor] should have discovered and removed the
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        8                       Opinion of the Court                  22-10174

        liquid prior to [the plaintiff’s] fall.” Id. at 67–68 (quotation omit-
        ted).

                 The plaintiff in All American also argued, as Ms. Carter does
        here, that the grocery store had “failed to establish that it had a rea-
        sonable inspection policy in place,” so a genuine dispute existed as
        to the store’s constructive knowledge of a spill. All Am. Quality
        Foods, 797 S.E.2d at 262. But, the All American court explained,
        “we fail to see how the inspection policy is relevant to [the plain-
        tiff’s] claim because in this somewhat unusual case, the video evi-
        dence establishes how long the substance was on the floor before
        [the plaintiff] fell.” Id. “[I]t is not always necessary for the propri-
        etor to show compliance with reasonable inspection procedures to
        establish a lack of constructive knowledge.” Johnson v. Autozone,
        Inc., 465 S.E.2d 463, 466 (Ga. Ct. App. 1995). “In seeking summary
        judgment, the proprietor may also produce evidence, as [it] did in
        this case, that the foreign substance had not been on the premises
        long enough to have been discovered by a reasonable inspection,
        regardless of whether inspection procedures had been instituted
        and complied with.” Id. at 466–67.

                Here, also, we have undisputed video evidence establishing
        how long the substance was on the floor before Ms. Carter fell.
        Under Georgia law, the twelve minutes the soda was on the floor
        “was insufficient as a matter of law to hold that” Wal-Mart “should
        have discovered and removed the liquid prior to” Ms. Carter’s
        “fall,” “[r]egardless of when” the produce aisle was last inspected.
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        22-10174               Opinion of the Court                         9

        See Hartman, 801 S.E.2d at 67–68. Compliance with an inspection
        policy is not “relevant” in a case where, as here, “the video evi-
        dence establishe[d] how long the substance was on the floor” be-
        fore the fall. See All Am. Quality Foods, 797 S.E.2d at 262. The
        soda Ms. Carter slipped on “had not been on the premises long
        enough to have been discovered by a reasonable inspection, re-
        gardless of whether inspection procedures had been instituted and
        complied with.” See Johnson, 465 S.E.2d at 466–67. The district
        court thus did not err in granting summary judgment.
                                     Sanctions
               District courts “have the inherent authority to control the
        proceedings before them, which includes the authority to impose
        ‘reasonable and appropriate’ sanctions.” Martin v. Automobili
        Lamborghini Exclusive, Inc., 307 F.3d 1332, 1335 (11th Cir. 2002)
        (quoting Malautea v. Suzuki Motor Co., 987 F.2d 1536, 1545 (11th
        Cir. 1993)). But, “to exercise its inherent power[,] a court must find
        that the party acted in bad faith.” Id. (emphasis added). And, even
        then, the inherent power to impose sanctions “must be exercised
        with restraint and discretion.” Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S.
        32, 44 (1991). To show that the district court abused its discretion
        in denying sanctions, Ms. Carter must show that it “applie[d] an
        incorrect legal standard, relie[d] on clearly erroneous factual find-
        ings, or commit[ted] a clear error of judgment.” United States v.
        Bates, 960 F.3d 1278, 1288 (11th Cir. 2020) (citation omitted).
             The district court did not abuse its discretion. It found that
        Ms. Carter hadn’t shown Wal-Mart acted in bad faith, and that
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        10                     Opinion of the Court                 22-10174

        finding was not clearly erroneous. Nothing in the record indicates
        that Wal-Mart knew about the false affidavit, facilitated its submis-
        sion, or otherwise acted in “subjective bad faith,” a prerequisite for
        inherent-power sanctions. See Hyde v. Irish, 962 F.3d 1306, 1310
        (11th Cir. 2020).
              Ms. Carter argues that the district court could have used its
        inherent power to sanction Wal-Mart for its counsel’s bad faith.
        But that is incorrect. A district court may not sanction a party “be-
        cause of misconduct by [its] attorney that is not fairly attributable
        to” the party. In re Porto, 645 F.3d 1294, 1304 (11th Cir. 2011),
        abrogated in part on other grounds by Ray Haluch Gravel Co. v.
        Cent. Pension Fund of Int’l Union of Operating Eng’rs & Partici-
        pating Emps., 571 U.S. 177 (2014)). Even if the district court had
        the power to impose such a sanction, its direction to Wal-Mart’s
        counsel to report the filing to the State Bar of Georgia sufficed to
        “vindicate judicial authority” without a more severe sanction. Pur-
        chasing Power, LLC v. Bluestem Brands, Inc., 851 F.3d 1218, 1223
        (11th Cir. 2017). The district court was not required to go further,
        so Ms. Carter hasn’t shown an abuse of discretion.
               AFFIRMED.