Slip & fall in a store’s bottle-return area; Premises liability; Negligence

As to premises liability the court held that by placing the caution “sign at the entrance of its bottle-return area, [defendant-Meijer] satisfied its duty to warn plaintiff, an invitee, of the known dangerous condition on Meijer’s premises.” Thus, the trial court properly dismissed plaintiff’s premises liability claim. Also, because both of her “negligence arguments actually sound in premises liability,” it properly dismissed her negligence claim. The appeal arose “out of a slip and fall that occurred in a bottle-return area on Meijer’s premises.” A tall yellow caution sign was near the entrance. Plaintiff insisted that there was a question of fact whether defendants were liable to her because an employee (B) “walked by plaintiff and did not warn her of the nearby puddle or offer to [help her] walk away from the puddle.” But plaintiff did “not explain how the fact that defendants could have theoretically done more to warn plaintiff about the wet floor creates a jury-triable issue. The caution sign at the bottle-return area’s entrance already warned plaintiff about that dangerous condition, and a plaintiff can almost always argue that a land possessor could do more to warn about a hazardous condition on the land, which is presumably why that is generally not the relevant inquiry.” The court noted that wet “floors are a common occurrence, especially in bottle-return areas, and the caution sign at the bottle-return area’s entrance warned plaintiff that the bottle-return area’s floor was wet and posed a fall risk.” She also argued that defendants were “liable in negligence because [B’s] conduct was negligent in two ways—(1) [B] left plaintiff standing in the puddle despite seeing the puddle and (2) he placed the caution sign near the door instead of closer to the wet areas of the floor so that customers could more easily navigate their carts into the bottle-return area.” Both arguments failed “for the simple reason that, assuming these allegations could establish a breach of duty, the duty arises from Meijer’s possession of the land. For her first argument, plaintiff frankly admits that the duty that [B] allegedly breached by leaving [her] standing in the puddle was the ‘duty of reasonable care . . . owed to [Meijer’s] customers (invitees).’ The placement of the caution sign similarly is only relevant because Meijer had a duty to warn invitees about known dangerous conditions on its land.” Plaintiff again admitted “as much, saying ‘that Meijer breached a standard of care on how to mitigate the hazard posed by spills and/or liquids on the floor and where to place caution signs in relation to those hazards.’”