Plaintiff, age 42 slipped and fell on water on a tile floor leading to a restroom in a movie theater, She suffered aggravation of a preexisting condition necessitating two cervical and lumbar fusion surgeries.
Plaintiff sued the movie theater alleging failure to place available runners or warning signs alerting patrons about water tracked in during a storm.
Defendant contended that it did not have time to put out signs, but plaintiff pointed out that at least a hundred patrons had entered the theater at least for 30 minutes after the storm and before her and thus they should have taken precautionary measures.
Florida Law states that the person or entity in possession or control of business premises owes a duty of reasonable care to maintain the premises in a reasonably safe condition for the safety of business invitees on the premises. In this case, the movie goer was the “business invitee”.
But In any civil action for negligence involving loss, injury, or damage to a business invitee as a result of an object or substance on the floor, the injured party shall have the burden of proving that:
(a) The person or entity in possession or control of the business premises owed a duty to the claimant;
(b) The person or entity in possession or control of the business premises acted negligently by failing to exercise reasonable care in the maintenance, inspection, repair, warning, or mode of operation of the business premises. Actual or constructive notice of the transitory foreign object or substance is not a required element of proof to this claim. However, evidence of notice or lack of notice offered by any party may be considered together with all of the evidence; and
(c) The failure to exercise reasonable care was a legal cause of the loss, injury, or damage
While often times it seems evident to the person injured that the business was responsible for the injury, it takes an experienced trial attorney familiar with the details of proving these types of cases.
The parties settled during mediation for $750,000.00
