Store Liable for Injuries if Spill Left Untended, High Court Says

Stores are liable for injuries if someone slips on spilled milk, or any kind of slop, and no one at the business had inspected the premises within a “reasonable time,” the California Supreme Court decided unanimously Thursday.

Ruling in a Torrance case, the court said a customer of Kmart who injured himself after slipping in a puddle of milk could recover monetary damages as long as he showed that the store had not inspected its aisles recently.

Appeals courts in the past held that victims in such cases had to prove the property owner knew or should have known of the hazard.

Justice Ming W. Chin, writing for the state’s high court, said evidence of an owner’s failure to inspect his or her property within a reasonable period of time before an accident “is sufficient to allow an inference that the condition was on the floor long enough to give the owner the opportunity to discover and remedy it.”

The court did not define what a reasonable period of time would be. Juries will be asked to decide that question on a case-by-case basis.

Incident Took Place in Torrance in 1998

In the case before the court, Richard M. Ortega had been shopping at a Kmart store in Torrance three years ago when he slipped on milk someone had spilled near a refrigerator. Ortega, now 28, suffered knee injuries, including ligament tears, and sued the store.

During a trial, Ortega testified he did not know how long the milk had been on the floor. He said he had not noticed whether the milk was hot or cold or smelly.

A former manager for Kmart testified that store employees are trained to look for and remove any hazards. Given the staffing at the store at the time of the accident, the manager said, it was unlikely that a spill would have been undetected for more than 15 or 30 minutes. He admitted, however, that the milk could have been on the floor for as long as two hours.

A Los Angeles County jury awarded Ortega $47,200, and Kmart appealed. A Court of Appeal upheld the reward. The appeals court said Ortega did not have to prove how long the milk was on the floor as long as he demonstrated the store had failed to check the site within a reasonable period of time.

The state high court agreed in its decision, Ortega vs. Kmart Corp., S091888.

Clarifying the Law in Slip-and-Fall Cases

Russell R. Ghitterman, an attorney who argued in favor of Ortega, said the decision clarified the law in slip-and-fall cases.

The ruling says that “if you don’t reasonably maintain the premises, we are going to let a jury infer that maybe you didn’t discover the condition when you could have,” said Ghitterman, who practices in Santa Barbara. “But the jury doesn’t have to make that inference.”

Richard A. Lense, who represented Ortega, said Thursday that he was delighted with the decision. “I waited three years for this one,” he said.

A spokesman for Kmart said he could not comment on the ruling because he had not read it.