In this day and age whenever someone is injured, there is the prospect of a lawsuit. This is particularly true whenever someone slips and falls. Maryland’s Court of Appeals last week considered such a case involving a doctor’s office in the case of Richardson v. Nwadiuko.
According to the opinion, the plaintiff Ms. Richardson accompanied her husband to Dr. Nwadiuko’s office for her husband’s medical appointment on a rainy day. Upon entering the office the plaintiff closed her umbrella, and took one step in with her left foot when she slipped, fell and was injured. She had not seen water on the floor, but inferred that her rubber soled shoe must have slipped because her clothes were wet after she landed on the floor.
Her husband did not slip or fall, and could not say that he saw water on the vinyl floor. There was no mat to dry one’s feet, and no sign such as “slippery when wet was posted.” No one who came to Ms. Richardson’s aid slipped or fell. The office had been open for two hours, and no one else had slipped or fallen.
The doctor said that no one had ever slipped or fallen in the office in the five years he owned it before this incident. While he knew floors could be slippery when wet, he had no knowledge that this particular floor was wet at the time of the plaintiff’s fall. He admitted that he saw no need to place a mat or a warning sign.
The trial judge granted judgment before trial for the doctor, and Ms. Richardson appealed. The appellate court first found that the plaintiff was a “business invitee” at the doctor’s office. This may matter, because under Maryland law a lesser duty may be owed by an owner of property to someone with the status of a trespasser or someone with a status other than a patron of the business. While Ms. Richardson was not a patient, the evidence was that there was no rule prohibiting spouses or family members from accompanying patients into the waiting area.
The appellate court found, however, that the trial judge correctly found for the defendant doctor. It noted the duty owed by a property owner to a business invitee: to use reasonable care to keep the premises safe, to protect the invitee from injury caused by an unreasonable risk that she, even in the exercise of ordinary care, would not discover. A person bringing such a suit must prove that the owner had actual or at least constructive notice of the dangerous condition in time to remove it or warn about it.
In this case, the court held, there was insufficient proof to even raise an issue for a jury to decide. The plaintiff could not say how much water was present, or how long it had been there, so it may be that the water was not even noticeable. No one else fell during the two hours the office was open, or after this incident while assisting the plaintiff. There was just not sufficient evidence of a dangerous condition, or notice of a dangerous condition, sufficient to make the doctor’s office responsible for this fall.
This illustrates how the courts go about resolving claims from slip and fall accidents, even in the doctor’s office.