Martin v. St. Dominci-Jackson Memorial Hospital
| Docket Number: | 2009-CA-01365-COA Linked Case(s): 2009-CA-01365-COA ; 2009-CT-01365-SCT ; 2009-CT-01365-SCT ; 2009-CT-01365-SCT |
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| Court of Appeals: |
Opinion Link Opinion Date: 05-24-2011 Opinion Author: Irving, P.J. Holding: Reversed and remanded. |
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| Additional Case Information: |
Topic: Personal injury - Premises liability - Slip and fall - Duty owed by business - Causation Judge(s) Concurring: Lee, C.J., Griffis, P.J. and Carlton, J. Non Participating Judge(s): Russell, J. Dissenting Author : Ishee, J. With Separate Written Opinion Dissent Joined By : Myers and Barnes, JJ. Concur in Part, Concur in Result 1: Roberts and Maxwell, JJ. Without Separate Written Opinion Procedural History: Directed Verdict Nature of the Case: CIVIL - PERSONAL INJURY |
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| Trial Court: |
Date of Trial Judgment: 05-14-2009 Appealed from: Hinds County Circuit Court Judge: W. Swan Yerger Disposition: Granted Directed Verdict in Favor of Defendant |
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| Party Name: | Attorney Name: | Brief(s) Available: | ||
| Appellant: | Elizabeth Martin |
MICAH B. DUTRO, RAMEL L. COTTON |
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| Appellee: | St. Dominic-Jackson Memorial Hospital | SHARON F. BRIDGES, JONATHAN R. WERNE, LANE W. STAINES, JOHN E. WADE JR. | ||
Synopsis provided by:  If you are interested in subscribing to the weekly synopses of all Mississippi Supreme Court and Court of Appeals hand downs please contact Tammy Upton in the MLI Press office. |
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| Topic: | Personal injury - Premises liability - Slip and fall - Duty owed by business - Causation |
| Summary of the Facts: | Elizabeth Martin sued St. Dominic-Jackson Memorial Hospital for injuries that she received in a slip-and-fall accident on the hospital’s premises. At the conclusion of the evidence, the hospital, arguing that Martin had failed to prove causation, moved for a directed verdict. The circuit court agreed and granted the hospital’s motion. Martin appeals. |
| Summary of Opinion Analysis: | In order to recover against St. Dominic, Martin is required to prove that the hospital owed her a duty, that the hospital breached that duty, that her injuries were caused by that breach, and that she suffered damages as a result. Also, in slip-and-fall cases, the duty owed by a business is to use reasonable and ordinary care to keep its premises reasonably safe for use by its customers and to warn them of any existing dangerous condition not readily apparent that is known to the business, or should have been known to it in the exercise of reasonable care. The evidence is undisputed that Martin fell on a freshly waxed floor at the hospital while she was a patient there. Therefore, as an invitee of the hospital, the hospital had a duty to warn her of the freshly waxed floor, which could be unusually slippery. During the trial, Martin testified that she was not warned by the nurses to avoid the area and that there were no warning or caution signs. Conversely, the hospital’s staff testified that all of the patients were warned to avoid the area being waxed and that caution signs were placed around the area. The testimony presented in this case created a question of fact as to whether the hospital failed to warn Martin of the dangerous condition. It is clear that Martin suffered damages. There is overwhelming and uncontradicted evidence that Martin’s fall was caused by the slippery, freshly waxed floor at the hospital. Second, the evidence is uncontradicted that Martin landed on both of her knees and that they immediately began to swell, necessitating utilization of ice packs, an overnight stay in the hospital, and pain medication. It is also undisputed that when she underwent an MRI a few days after the fall, it showed a mild ACL sprain, the kind that is quite often suffered by athletes in the contact sport of football, and edema in the bone marrow. On these facts, reasonable minds could not even differ as to whether some of Martin’s injuries were caused by her fall at the hospital, leaving the only remaining question to be whether the hospital breached its duty to Martin. The more difficult question is whether the edema in the bone marrow of Martin’s knee and the meniscus tear were caused by Martin’s fall or by the normal wear and tear that occurs as a result of the aging process and the progression of arthritis in the body. It is certainly reasonable that the jury could have decided that the cause was the impact to the knee from the fall, rather than the progression of Martin’s arthritis. Since reasonable minds could reach different conclusions as to the cause of her meniscus tear, the circuit court erred in directing a verdict for the hospital. The jury should have been allowed to make that determination based upon the totality of the evidence presented. |
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