115
C
ASE: 15
ISSUE BEFORE THE COURT
Whether a business owner owes a duty to business invitees to protect
them against negligent acts by third persons on the business premises.
THE FACTS
You Be the Judge!
You Be the Judge!
There are over seven
million "slip and fall"
lawsuits fi led each year.
Ms. Dee Dee Medley led suit against Home Depot, Inc., for dam-
ages she claimed occurred from a slip and fall injury at Home Depot.
Ms. Medley was shopping at Home Depot looking for an exten-
sion cord. She pushed her shopping cart halfway down an aisle and
le it to go ask Andrew Attaway, the department manager, for help in
locating the product.
As Ms. Medley headed back to her cart, still looking for the exten-
sion cord, she slipped and fell on oil spilled on the oor. Ms. Medley
never saw the oil or any liquid on the oor, but a Home Depot em-
ployee told her at the scene that she had slipped on oil.
While an oil container was found on the oor near Ms. Medley's
fall, no oil was sold in the area in which Ms. Medley fell. e bottle
had been deliberately punctured open, as if with a screwdriver, and it
appeared that the oil had been deliberately poured onto the oor. e
bottle containing the rest of the oil had been thrown between some
boxes on the side of the aisle.
A er her fall, Ms. Medley went to the hospital, where a Home De-
pot loss prevention supervisor, Steven Hester, visited her. Mr. Hester
stated that he believed a group of teenagers had poured the oil onto
the oor.
With respect to non-shoppers, Home Depot's storewide policy
required supervisors to monitor the store for any persons who are
non-shoppers and ask them to leave the store. Hester testi ed at trial
that he was aware of three teenagers who were running through the
store--playing hide and seek. He stated that these young people were
not shoppers, but horsing around, playing tag, and killing time. Hes-
ter was monitoring the teens to make sure the situation did not get out
of hand, and at one point, he told them to behave or nd their parents
and leave.
For Evaluation Purposes Only