Steven Sundook, Esq. and Alexis Barkis, Esq. (SW FL, Ft. Myers) (Premises Liaibility) obtained a Summary Final Judgment in the case styled Schultheis v. JP Morgan Chase,.Mrs. Schultheis was walking in the lobby of a Chase Bank in North Naples when she claimed that she suddenly and without warning, slipped on the very wet floor and fell violently to the ground”. She claimed that as a result of the fall she suffered a full thickness rotator cuff tear to her right shoulder, and vertical tear through the body of the medial meniscus of her left knee, which required surgery. Medical bills totaled over $40,000. Although she qualified for Medicare, the 79 year old Plaintiff’s medical bills were not submitted to Medicare. They were all outstanding on letters of protection to her doctors and other medical providers.
At her deposition, she testified that although it had rained earlier in the day, it wasn’t raining at all when she parked her car next to the sidewalk, outside the bank. There were no puddles or any standing water in the parking lot or on the sidewalk, as she walked toward the bank. She first walked through a marble tiled vestibule area and then proceeded into the bank lobby. She walked across the marble tiled floor to a bank teller. She then walked to the right of a narrow, high table used to write checks and deposit slips, was looking where she was walking and did not see any water or other liquid on the floor. There was nothing to obstruct her vision of the floor. She fell as she reached the end of the table. She did not feel either of her feet slipping. She claims she saw water on the floor after she fell. She never told anyone who assisted her, or with whom she spoke after she fell, that there was water on the floor. She did not see anyone wipe up anything off the floor. She never told anyone at the bank at any time that she thought she had slipped on water. She did not know how the water she claimed she saw on the floor came to be there, or how long it had been there.
In the Motion for Summary Final Judgment, it was argued that _768.0755(1) Florida Statutes applied, and that under the statute a person who slips and falls on a transitory foreign substance in a business establishment, … must prove that the business establishment had actual or constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition and should have taken action to remedy it.” In granting the motion for Summary Final Judgment, the court agreed that, in viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the Plaintiff, she had not shown that the water, she now claimed was on the floor, existed for such a length of time that the Defendant should have known about it.
The Court Entered Final Summary Judgment against the Plaintiff dismissing the case with Prejudice and taxing costs against the Plaintiff.