GRAND UNION SUPERMARKETS, INC., A FLORIDA CORPORATION, APPELLANT,
v.
FANNIE M. GRIFFIN AND HER HUSBAND, IKE GRIFFIN, APPELLEES

Fla. 3d DCA | 1963-10-15
No. 63-66
Before BARKDULL, C. J., and CARROLL and TILLMAN PEARSON, JJ.
156 So. 2d 788 Florida District Court of Appeal, Third District (1963) Positive Treatment
Cited by 14 cases

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Holding

The court held that the defendant supermarket was not liable for a customer's slip and fall absent evidence of employee fault or actual/constructive notice of the hazard.


Facts & Procedural History

A customer slipped and fell on a foreign substance, possibly a fruit pit, in a supermarket. There was no evidence that a store employee caused the sub…

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Opinion of the Court
PEARSON, TILLMAN, Judge.

PEARSON, TILLMAN, Judge.

The defendant appeals a final judgment entered upon a jury verdict for the plaintiffs. It is urged that the court erred in failing to rule as a matter of law that under the facts of this case defendant-supermarket was not liable to plaintiff-customer who slipped and fell while shopping.

Viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, the evidence showed that the plaintiff-wife slipped and fell in the defendant’s store on a foreign substance upon the floor. The foreign substance could have been taken by the jury to have been a fruit pit to which a portion of the fruit was attached. There was, however, no evidence that a store employee was responsible for the foreign substance being on the floor, nor was there evidence that the defendant had knowledge, actual or constructive, of the existence of the substance on the floor. See Food Fair Stores of Fla., Inc. v. Patty, Fla.1959, 109 So.2d 5.

The judgment must be reversed upon authority of Commercial Credit Corp. v. Varn, Fla.App.1959, 108 So.2d 638; and the rule stated in Food Fair Stores, Inc. v. Trusell, Fla.1961, 131 So.2d 730, 733.

We hold, therefore, that the court should have granted defendant’s motion for directed verdict at the close of all the evidence.

Reversed.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • Jenkins v. Brackin, 171 So. 2d 589 (Fla. 2d DCA 1965)
    …d Fair Stores, Inc. v. Trusell, 131 So. 2d 730 (Fla.1961); Food Fair Stores of Florida, Inc. v. Patty, 109 So. 2d 5 (Fla. 1959); Haley v. Harvey Building, Inc., Fla.App. 1964, 168 So. 2d 330; Grand Union Supermarkets, Inc. v. Griffin, Fla.App. 1963, 156 So. 2d 788. The defendant argues that before the question can arise as to whether he should have discovered the defective condition there must he some evidence of how long the defective condition existed. He asserts that the depositions and affidavits contain…
  • Gross v. Hatmaker, 173 So. 2d 158 (Fla. 2d DCA 1965)
    …al knowledge of the condition and negligently failed to remedy it, or (3) that the condition had existed for a sufficient period of time to place Gross on constructive notice of its existence. Grand Union Supermarkets, Inc. v. Griffin, Fla.App.1963, 156 So. 2d 788; Food Fair Stores of Florida, Inc. v. Patty, Fla. 1959, 109 So. 2d 5. The plaintiff endeavors to sustain the judgment rendered for her by making reference in her brief to testimony disclosed in a deposition given by T. J. Wright. The deposition was…
  • Marlo Invs., Inc. v. Verne, 227 So. 2d 58 (Fla. 4th DCA 1969)
    …of the condition and failed to remedy it, or the condition existed a sufficient period of time that he should have had constructive notice of the existence of the defective condition. Also see Grand Union Supermarkets, Inc. v. Griffin, Fla.App.1963, 156 So. 2d 788; Food Fair Stores of Florida, Inc. v. Patty, Fla. 1959, 109 So. 2d 5. Plaintiffs argue that they have produced circumstantial evidence adequate to support the jury’s verdict. They base it upon the testimony that after the fall it was noticed that u…

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