Lora Gonzales v. Target Corporation

Filing

OPINION filed : we REVERSE the district court s judgment and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion, decision not for publication. Eric L. Clay (Authoring) and David W. McKeague (concurring), Circuit Judges; and William O. Bertelsman, District Judge EDKY.

Case: 14-2504

Document: 27-1

Filed: 08/06/2015

Page: 1

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
File Name: 15a0552n.06
No. 14-2504

FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

Aug 06, 2015
DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk

LORA GONZALES,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.

ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED
STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN

TARGET CORPORATION,
Defendant-Appellee.

BEFORE:

CLAY and McKEAGUE, Circuit Judges; BERTELSMAN, District Judge.

CLAY, Circuit Judge. Plaintiff Lora Gonzales appeals the district court’s grant of
summary judgment in favor of Defendant Target Corporation in this negligence action arising
out of Gonzales’ slip and fall at a Target store. For the reasons that follow, we REVERSE the
district court’s judgment.
I.
Target is a discount retailer with nearly 2,000 stores operating across the United States.
On August 28, 2012, Gonzales entered Target’s Sterling Heights, Michigan store with her minor
daughter.

Video surveillance footage shows that at approximately 10:24:22 a.m., Target

employee Anthony Pascaretti walked down the main aisle of the store—passing the location


The Honorable William O. Bertelsman, United States District Judge for the Eastern
District of Kentucky, sitting by designation.

Case: 14-2504

Document: 27-1

Filed: 08/06/2015

Page: 2

No. 14-2504
where Gonzales would eventually fall—on his way to the electronics department. Seven minutes
later, at approximately 10:31:34 a.m., Gonzales is seen walking down the main aisle of the store
and appears to slip and then fall. Store employees immediately converged on Gonzales, helped
her to her feet, and procured a cold compress for her injured left knee. Gonzales informed the
store that she slipped on what appeared to be small puddles of water spanning about five feet.
Store employees confirmed that there was water at the site of the fall.
Gonzales subsequently filed this diversity suit alleging that Target was negligent in
failing to maintain safe premises at its Sterling Heights store. Specifically, Gonzales alleges that
Target had constructive notice of the spilled water, failed to clean it up, and she was injured as a
result. The district court granted Target’s motion for summary judgment, holding that Gonzales
failed to present sufficient evidence that Target should have been aware of the hazardous
condition.
II.
We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo. Moore v. Menasha
Corp., 690 F.3d 444, 449 (6th Cir. 2012). The moving party is entitled to summary judgment if
“there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a
matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). In determining whether summary judgment was proper,
we “view the facts and any inferences reasonably drawn from them in the light most favorable to
the [nonmoving] party.” Kalamazoo Acquisitions, L.L.C., v. Westfield Ins. Co., Inc., 395 F.3d
338, 342 (6th Cir. 2005). Sitting in diversity, we apply Michigan substantive law and federal
procedural law. Hayes v. Equitable Energy Res. Co., 266 F.3d 560, 566 (6th Cir. 2001).

2

Case: 14-2504

Document: 27-1

Filed: 08/06/2015

Page: 3

No. 14-2504
Under Michigan law, shopkeepers have a duty to maintain reasonably safe premises.
Clark v. Kmart Corp., 634 N.W.2d 347, 348 (Mich. 2001). A shopkeeper is negligent and thus
liable for injury resulting from an unsafe condition if he: (1) actively caused the hazard, (2) knew
about the hazard, or (3) should have known about the hazard. Id. at 348–49. Under this third
theory of liability, a shopkeeper can be charged with constructive notice if the unsafe condition
“is of such a character or has existed a sufficient length of time that he should have had
knowledge of it.” Id. at 349. A plaintiff can use circumstantial evidence to establish negligence,
as long as the inferences drawn from the evidence are reasonable and constitute more than mere
speculation or conjecture. Whitmore v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 279 N.W.2d 318, 321 (Mich. Ct.
App. 1979).
In this case, Gonzales proceeds under the constructive notice theory of liability. She
claims that the unsafe condition existed at the time that Pascaretti walked by the fall site, and
therefore Target should have known about it and fixed the problem. (Target admits that if there
was water on the floor when Pascaretti walked by, then he should have noticed it and cleaned it
up. But Target denies that there was water on the floor when Pascaretti passed.) Gonzales
argues that the water must have been on the floor when Pascaretti walked past the fall site
because in the seven minute interval between his passing and her fall, the surveillance video
shows that nine customers walked by the fall location and none of them appear to be holding a
bottle of water and none of them appear to spill anything.
The district court rejected this argument, concluding that “the visual quality of the
surveillance footage is simply too poor” to determine what the passing customers were doing
with their hands or whether any of them spilled anything. The court granted Target’s motion for

3

Case: 14-2504

Document: 27-1

Filed: 08/06/2015

Page: 4

No. 14-2504
summary judgment because Gonzales presented no other evidence supporting her theory of
constructive notice.
Gonzales argues that the district court erred in disregarding the surveillance footage, and
we are inclined to agree. Sure enough, the video is somewhat pixelated. But we cannot say as a
matter of law that the quality is so poor that a reasonable factfinder would be unable to conclude
that a particular customer: was not holding a bottle of water (because, for example, her hands
were on a shopping cart); did not actively spill something (based on body language); or did not
unknowingly spill something (because, for example, she had nothing in her hands and her
shopping cart was empty). And if the jury were to find that none of the passing customers were
responsible for the spilled water, Gonzales can establish that the hazard was present when
Pascaretti walked by and Target therefore should have known about it. Under these
circumstances, summary judgment is inappropriate.
III.
For the foregoing reasons, we REVERSE the district court’s judgment and REMAND
for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

4

Case: 14-2504

Document: 27-1

Filed: 08/06/2015

Page: 5

No. 14-2504
McKEAGUE, Circuit Judge, concurring. I see two plausible explanations as to what
happened here. First, as the majority explains, the puddles were on the floor when the Target
employee walked by the spot, seven minutes before Gonzales fell. See Majority Op. at 4.
Second, as Target argues, the puddles were not on the floor when the Target employee walked by
because one of the ten customers spilled the liquid after the employee walked by. Gonzales must
persuade us that a jury could reasonably find the first explanation, rather than the second, more
likely than not occurred. For if there are “two or more plausible explanations as to how an event
happened,” no one more likely than the other, the explanations “remain conjectures only”—not
enough to prevail under Michigan law. Kaminski v. Grand Trunk W. R. Co., 79 N.W.2d 899,
901–02 (Mich. 1956). I join the majority in holding that Gonzales has met her burden here. But
I write separately because of my reservations as to this conclusion.
Gonzales concedes that she doesn’t “have a case” without the surveillance video. Oral
Argument at 00:37–42, Gonzales v. Target Corp. (No. 14-2504). But that video far from
clinches her case. It’s too blurry, too far away, and too obscured by a pillar to see whether there
was any liquid on the floor when the Target employee walked by the spot Gonzales later fell.
And after he walked by, in the seven minutes before the fall, ten customers passed through the
same spot. Some pushed carts. One jumped on the back of the cart and rode it like a scooter.
One swung only her right arm as she walked, apparently carrying something in her left arm.
Over half of these customers walked through the exact spot where Gonzales would later fall.
Not one looked down, changed direction, or otherwise showed signs of seeing puddles. So:
Could a jury conclude from that evidence that the water was more likely than not on the floor
when the Target employee walked by, seven minutes prior?

5

Case: 14-2504

Document: 27-1

Filed: 08/06/2015

Page: 6

No. 14-2504
We say yes, holding that the surveillance video—coupled with the inferences we draw in
the plaintiff’s favor at summary judgment—sufficiently makes this a jury question. But the case
is much closer than the majority lets on. I worry that the video leaves us—and the jury—
speculating about what might have happened. And if that’s the case, we would affirm the grant
of summary judgment, because the jury cannot be left “to speculate as to when the spill occurred
to determine whether defendant’s employees had constructive notice.” Guthre v. Lowe’s Home
Centers, Inc., 204 F. App’x 524, 527 (6th Cir. 2006) (Michigan citation omitted). We uphold
summary judgment when there is “no way of knowing whether the [dangerous condition] had
been on the floor all day or for merely five seconds.” Id. We instead hold here that Gonzales
has barely—but just barely—“take[n] the case out of the realm of conjecture,” as she must in
Michigan slip-and-fall cases. Whitmore v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 279 N.W.2d 318, 321 (Mich.
1979); see Skinner v. Square D Co., 516 N.W.2d 475, 480 (Mich. 1994).
A jury, American law’s traditional factfinder, will thus decide the case. But the district
court did not go too astray in granting summary judgment to Target. While the panel reverses
and sends the case to a jury, I absolutely see the merits in coming out the other way.

6