A federal appeals court Friday ordered a jury trial in a lawsuit filed by a woman who was injured when she slipped on a grape and fell at a Walmart store in West Palm Beach.
A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a federal district judge’s decision granting summary judgment to Walmart in the lawsuit about injuries suffered in August 2018 by Vanessa Sutton. Friday’s 14-page ruling said Walmart argued that “Sutton failed to offer sufficient evidence that Wal-Mart had actual or constructive knowledge of the grape,” a requirement of Florida law.
But the appeals court disagreed and said a jury should consider the facts.
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“Sutton unambiguously testified that there was a track mark and footprints through the grape,” said the ruling, written by Judge Stanley Marcus and joined by Chief Judge William Pryor and Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle. “Thus, this case falls cleanly into the set of Florida cases that require a jury to decide whether the substance sat on the floor long enough to establish constructive notice.”
Sutton initially filed the case in state court, but it was moved to federal court at the request of Walmart.
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