The Law

Good Records Win by Ron Davis Vigilance and detailed record keeping. Those are the two key qualities that have allowed owners of an Illinois shopping center to prevail against charges of negligence against them. The negligence charges result from a slip-and-fall accident at the shopping center, Northbrook Court Mall, located in the Chicago area. And the accident occurred as the victim, an employee of one of the tenants, was on break from her job. As she and a coworker were walking across the lower level of the mall, she slipped and fell, seriously injuring her right shoulder. She later said the accident occurred near an escalator. And she added that when she rose to her feet after the fall, she was sure she had slipped on “some type of liquid” on the floor. She also said the substance on the floor “smelled like solution, water, solution, cleaning solution, Windex.” Her visual description of the substance on the floor was that of “a clear solution” and “it was just liquidy. I don’t remember the texture of it.” Moreover, she said at the time of her fall, she did not see a cleaning cart or any bottles of cleaning solution in the area. Finally, she stated that the shopping center’s janitorial workers “are constantly cleaning the escalators, and they’re constantly spraying Windex and squeegeeing it.” She implied by that observation that the cleaning operation and her fall were connected. A public-safety supervisor on duty at the time of the accident responded to the slip-and-fall accident. He said he questioned the victim, but he added that even though she told him she slipped on something wet, she did not mention that the wet spot smelled like cleaning solution. He also noted that he did not observe any wet spots on the accident victim’s clothing. The public-safety supervisor and an associate said they then searched the area where the accident occurred, but they added that they were unable to find any liquid substance on the floor. Photographs subsequently taken of the floor in that area failed to show spilled liquid there. Of importance to the shopping center’s defense was the daily routine of the cleaning crew there. On the day of the accident, for example, two porters were assigned to maintain the common areas. Records show that every 30 minutes, they took a lap around the mall to clean the common areas. One of the porters supposedly would have checked for problems at the site of the accident victim’s fall every 30 minutes. And after the accident, the mall’s “spill/wet-floor log” showed an investigation of the spot where the accident occurred and reported that nothing was found on the floor there. The fall victim nevertheless sued the shopping center owners on claims that the solution she slipped on was a window-cleaning brand. She argued that a “housekeeper” at the center used that window cleaner inappropriately by “squeegeeing it and allowing it to drip on the floor” where the fall occurred. An Illinois court rejected that argument based on records of the shopping center’s maintenance operations. The injured woman appealed. An Illinois appellate court dismissed the appeal, explaining, “While the injured woman claims that the liquid substance was ‘squeegeed’ onto the floor [prior to her slip-and-fall accident], nothing in the record supports that claim. Constructive notice cannot be shown on the record before us.” (Ishoo v. General Growth Properties, Inc., 2012 WL 933383 [Ill.App. 1 Dist.]) Decision: March 2012 Published: March 2012