Victorene Barronette v. Target

Tom Paradise & Belinda Scott (Hollywood, FL) (Premises Liability) obtained Summary Judgment in Federal Court, Southern District, in the premises liability matter of Victorene Barronette v. Target wherein the Plaintiff slipped on a puddle of clear water in the checkout lane. The incident was captured by Target’s cameras but no explicit source of the spill was depicted in the video footage. Plaintiff testified that there were marks from a shopping cart and the mark from her own shoe in the water. She later underwent three surgeries and amassed medical bills of $380,000.00, with a fourth surgical recommendation. Plaintiff claimed that the water was on the floor for a long time (as evidenced by the cart marks) and was missed by Target employees who walked through the checkout lane in the minutes preceding the incident. Because the video does not depict any of the employees explicitly looking down on the floor, Plaintiff’s counsel argued that the employees walking through the subject area did not represent an adequate/reasonable inspection. Defense counsel emphasized Plaintiff’s description of the water (marks from only one cart and only her own footprint), the absence of the footprints of the TMs who had walked through the aisle, and the footage of the moments beforehand. The video shows that immediately before Plaintiff entered the aisle (and after the Target employees had walked through), a guest had a shopping cart containing a (1) liter jug of water. That cart rested over the location where Plaintiff would later fall for two minutes before that guest left and the Plaintiff approached: conceivably the moment that the spill was created. As such the Defendant argued that the spill was created after the employees walked through and Target was unaware of and not liable for same. The Court agreed with defense counsel and granted the Defendant’s MSJ and the published opinion is available at Barronette v. Target Corp., 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 161006 (S.D. Fla. 2018).