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Costco can't move "I slipped on a slurpee" lawsuit

Guy Incognito said:
This is your advice to an elderly woman? How heartless.
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More like how heartless to letting her wander where she can hurt herself. I dont know the lady, so I can't judge how good her senses still are. There comes a time in a senior's life when they need to be taken care of, and this seems like a good example. I think there should be standard testing for drivers periodically too. Both for their sake and the sake of others, there are plenty who shouldn't be driving. Stating this, I am a big fan of the tradition in many Asian countries where senior family members live with younger generations of their family. I've even suggested this to my mother.
 
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Jerry said:
This is what you call insane? Seriously? A minor, token procedural request? This is on the level of one of your car tires being 3psi low. This is the kind of decision there doesn't even need to be a hearing for, but you want us to believe there was a full-blown trial-by-jury just to decide where the lawsuit was going to be held. Holy crap!

Notice how the article makes it sound like the poor, defenseless old woman had to "beat back" the big bad corporation. Oh noes! More like her pro-bono ambulance-chasing former used-car-salesman lawyer was sent a motion, he put down the scotch long enough to pen a 'response', the judge read both and snail-mailed each party his decision; and then to get some fame her trailer-trash patched-elbow bearly-passed-the-bar-on-the-3rd-try porno-mustache yellow toothed magnum-PI wannabe "lawyer" (who's probably also her son in-law) sent an anonymous tip to a few newspapers.

It's not Cosco's fault she spilled her drink...or that another customer just spilled immediately before her slip, and thus didn't have a reasonable amount of time to clean it. Good thing it wasn't hot coffee.

Relax folks, Cosco will settle. They always do....because if the lil old lady doesn't play along Cosco can drag this out past her death....she is 74, after all.
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Mathematician said:
More like how heartless to letting her wander where she can hurt herself. I dont know the lady, so I can't judge how good her senses still are. There comes a time in a senior's life when they need to be taken care of, and this seems like a good example. I think there should be standard testing for drivers periodically too. Both for their sake and the sake of others, there are plenty who shouldn't be driving. Stating this, I am a big fan of the tradition in many Asian countries where senior family members live with younger generations of their family. I've even suggested this to my mother.
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I just love the rush to judgement here. All we know is the woman won a change of venue motion in court.

Assuming she was hurt, the quick judgement is this must be her fault because she is old. You are assigning all of your preconceived ideas to one incident and acting as if you know what is going. Is there a chance that this woman was not, in fact, a frail old-lady and was in fact seriously injured through little to no fault of her own? (I mean, just a chance)... or is every lawsuit filed against a corporation frivolous with the motivates of the plaintiff just to get rich? This is why we have courts... to layout and study the facts.

Either learn more about the case or stop your wild-ass speculation.

PS- especially nice touch making up facts by suggesting 'she spilled her drink'.
 
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upsideguy said:
I just love the rush to judgement here.
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So do I, but you're not very good at it. Try harder!

upsideguy said:
Assuming she was hurt....
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According to the article she was very "hurt", requiring therapy, even.

upsideguy said:
....the quick judgement is this must be her fault because she is old.
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No, not because she old; because she's a dumbass! Now maybe she's a stupid **** who doesn't watch where she's going because she's old, but wtf, doesn't she know she's old and think "holy **** I'm older than petrified raptor piss, I'd better watch where the **** I'm walking"? NO, she doesn't, why, because she's a dumbass! Being stupid didn't make her old, being old made her stupid. It's not her fault that she's old or stupid, but she IS old and stupid.

Be the only one in a buisy store to not see the mess and slip it, then blame it on age: Woman logic.

upsideguy said:
Is there a chance that this woman was not, in fact, a frail old-lady and was in fact seriously injured through little to no fault of her own?
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I didn't say it was her fault she was a dumbass. I said being old made her stupid, and you can't help age, therefore being stupid wasn't her fault....but it wasn't Cosco's fault, either. **** happens. If your to ****ing old to go to the store without practically killing yourself, then you shouldn't leave your musty Depends-smelling apartment. Keep your saggy ass at home.

upsideguy said:
Either learn more about the case or stop your wild-ass speculation.
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You sound like you're getting up there in years......
 
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upsideguy said:
I just love the rush to judgement here. All we know is the woman won a change of venue motion in court.

Assuming she was hurt, the quick judgement is this must be her fault because she is old. You are assigning all of your preconceived ideas to one incident and acting as if you know what is going. Is there a chance that this woman was not, in fact, a frail old-lady and was in fact seriously injured through little to no fault of her own? (I mean, just a chance)... or is every lawsuit filed against a corporation frivolous with the motivates of the plaintiff just to get rich? This is why we have courts... to layout and study the facts.

Either learn more about the case or stop your wild-ass speculation.

PS- especially nice touch making up facts by suggesting 'she spilled her drink'.
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I never said anything about being elderly suggesting she is at fault. I didn't say squat about motives either. I am saying there are two main cases:
1. You are capable of seeing where you are walking and should look where you're walking.
2. You are incapable of seeing where you are walking and someone should be holding your hand.
Why not sue the government for being on their roads when you hydroplane and crash?
 
ludahai said:
article

This is pretty insane...



Shouldn't Florida law and thus Florida courts be at issue here and not New York? This occurred in Florida. I would be totally surprised if this woman doesn't win something, given she is in New York, but I could totally see Costco winning an appeal in a federal court. This is insane.
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An amazing number of civil lawsuits have ended up in Madison County, Illinois. For no other reason that it is Madison County, Illinois with very "big hearted, generous" jury pools.

Jury shopping is a sad reflection on our culture, but common......
 
Guy Incognito said:
This is your advice to an elderly woman? How heartless.
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Do you know why Cosco/Sams/Wall-depot/mart/max have electric carts and ****?

Because old ladys don't see **** EVERYONE ELSE sees and avoids, they slip in it, they fall, they sue.

You can't slip and fall if your already sitting in a ****ing cart. DUH!

"Oh look at me I'm in my 'golden years' and I'm independent and I can do whatever I-*whop-splat*".

Better get that Life-Alert!
 
Jerry said:
Do you know why Cosco/Sams/Wall-depot/mart/max have electric carts and ****?

Because old ladys don't see **** EVERYONE ELSE sees and avoids, they slip in it, they fall, they sue.

You can't slip and fall if your already sitting in a ****ing cart. DUH!

"Oh look at me I'm in my 'golden years' and I'm independent and I can do whatever I-*whop-splat*".

Better get that Life-Alert!
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Well they can always get the clap, uh I mean the clapper.
 
ludahai said:
article

This is pretty insane...



Shouldn't Florida law and thus Florida courts be at issue here and not New York? This occurred in Florida. I would be totally surprised if this woman doesn't win something, given she is in New York, but I could totally see Costco winning an appeal in a federal court. This is insane.
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This kind of thing is fairly common for plaintiffs suing large companies. In general (and the details are very complicated) a company may be sued in any state in which it transacts any significant amount of business.
Reading between the lines, Wall-Mart seems to have been arguing to have the case removed to Florida under a doctrine called Forum Non Conveniens, which allows for removal of cases that might potentially be tried in a number of forums to one more convenient for the party making the motion. Based on what I saw in the article, the judge correctly looked to the relevant factors (relative financial costs to the parties vs relative financial strength of the parties; where the witnesses are located, etc) and reached a totally understandable decision. Wall-Mart has stores in every state in the union, and probably has legal teams pretty much everywhere. Flying a couple of employees up to New York to testify is a much less significant problem for it than it would be for an old lady to spend money to fly down to Florida and potentially spend days or weeks paying for a hotel room.
 
There have been plenty of cases of something happening in a different state, but the lawsuit is filed in the state where the defendant's head office is.

Unless the Costco name is franchised under a different ownership in Florida (i.e. a subsidiary), then the corporate entity is considered to be universally the same regardless of what state it's in.
 
AdamT said:
Depends on the circumstances. Lets say that four customers have independently reported to the manager that something has been spilled in the first aid aisle: something slippery, like an icy beverage. An hour goes by and the manager still hasn't sent someone to clean it up. A customer slips and injures herself. The store was negligent because it has a duty of care to maintain a reasonably safe place of business.

If, OTOH, the spill just happened a minute before the fall, and somone had already been dispatched to clean it up -- probably no negligence.
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This is getting dumb. Now we are judging on how long the spill was there? Really? Like I said, spills happen. It's up to the people in the stores to watch their feet to avoid falls. Its not negligent no matter how long it stays there.
 
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Henrin said:
This is getting dumb. Now we are judging on how long the spill was there? Really? Like I said, spills happen. It's up to the people in the stores to watch their feet to avoid falls. Its not negligent no matter how long it stays there.
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As a matter of law it is up to the store to maintain a reasonably safe environment. This is a common law principle that's been around for hundreds of years.
 
AdamT said:
The case is filed in state court, so (federal) subject matter jurisdiction doesn't come into play. The case will go forward in NY.
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Unless there are issues having to do with the Federal Constitution.

The incident took place in Florida. As such, shouldn't FLORIDA law, not NEW YORK law, be the deciding factor in how this plays out?
 
ludahai said:
The incident took place in Florida. As such, shouldn't FLORIDA law, not NEW YORK law, be the deciding factor in how this plays out?
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Yep, it will be decided under Florida law. But I doubt there's much difference. Pretty standard premises liability stuff.
 
AdamT said:
As a matter of law it is up to the store to maintain a reasonably safe environment. This is a common law principle that's been around for hundreds of years.
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As a matter of common sense you watch where you're going anywhere you are. This is a common practice that has been around even before the human race existed.

We shouldn't be anal over things trying to find out how long ago something happened to avoid common sense.
 
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Henrin said:
As a matter of common sense you watch where you're going anywhere you are. This is a common practice that has been around even before the human race existed.

We shouldn't be anal over things trying to find out how long ago something happened to avoid common sense.
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I guess you spend a lot more time watching your feet than most people.
 
Wow. The Ageism in this thread is deep:(
 
AdamT said:
I guess you spend a lot more time watching your feet than most people.
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You don't need to watch your feet that closely if you notice the floor in front of you.
 
AdamT said:
I guess you spend a lot more time watching your feet than most people.
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Have you ever heard of peripheral vision? Don't try using using the majority to excuse ignorance or carelessness.
 
Jerry said:
Do you know why Cosco/Sams/Wall-depot/mart/max have electric carts and ****?

Because old ladys don't see **** EVERYONE ELSE sees and avoids, they slip in it, they fall, they sue.

You can't slip and fall if your already sitting in a ****ing cart. DUH!

"Oh look at me I'm in my 'golden years' and I'm independent and I can do whatever I-*whop-splat*".

Better get that Life-Alert!
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One day you will be old and still trying to walk around as if you are billy bad ass. I hope you fall and bust your ass open cause you seem to have no heart towards others.
 
Kali said:
One day you will be old and still trying to walk around as if you are billy bad ass. I hope you fall and bust your ass open cause you seem to have no heart towards others.
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Assuming I still have legs when I come back next year.

If I don't:

tankchair_small.jpg
 
Kali said:
One day you will be old and still trying to walk around as if you are billy bad ass. I hope you fall and bust your ass open cause you seem to have no heart towards others.
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Your first sentence emphasizes that some seniors should not be trying to walk around.

Do I have sympathy for someone who gets hurt? Usually, I do. However, I'm going to lose a little (if not all) of that sympathy when they try to blame someone else when they could have prevented it themselves without having to take any major precautions.
 
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Mathematician said:
Have you ever heard of peripheral vision? Don't try using using the majority to excuse ignorance or carelessness.
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Well, it's a funny thing about peripheral vision: it tends to diminish over time -- especially when someone is in a store looking for something on a shelf that may be at or above her eye level.
 
Mathematician said:
Your first sentence emphasizes that some seniors should not be trying to walk around.

Do I have sympathy for someone who gets hurt? Usually, I do. However, I'm going to lose a little (if not all) of that sympathy when they try to blame someone else when they could have prevented it themselves without having to take any major precautions.
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You should print that out and save it for when you're 75 and hobbling around with cataracts in your eyes. I'm sure you'll see the humor in it then.
 
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