Weiner Law Group Granted Summary Judgements for Costco Wholesale Corporation

Weiner Law Group was granted summary judgements in two cases on behalf of our client, Costco Wholesale Corporation. Details for each are as follows:

Awwad v. Costco Wholesale Corporation, 2:19-cv-17221-MCA-AME

We were granted summary judgment in connection with an incident wherein the plaintiff alleged a slip and fall resulting in a total knee replacement.  The plaintiff alleged that he was caused to slip on a large puddle of milk within a dairy cooler, and incident report photographs depicted a crushed milk container surrounded by a large puddle of milk.  The plaintiff alleged that the area smelled of sour milk and that it was congealed, indicating that the condition had been present for a long time.

The defendant’s inspection procedures showed that an employee was in the subject cooler very shortly before the happening of the incident, and there was no puddle of milk in the cooler at that time.  The court granted our summary judgment motion, finding that the plaintiff failed to establish that defendant knew or should have known of the milk condition.  The court noted that plaintiff’s only argument that defendant had notice of the condition was that the milk smelled and was congealed, but failed to offer any expert testimony that showed at what point after the spill, located in a cooler, would start to congeal and smell.

Choi v. Costco Wholesale Corporation, 2:19-cv-17916-WJM-ESK

We were granted summary judgment in connection with an incident wherein the plaintiff alleged a slip and fall resulting in an ACL repair surgery and a lumbar discectomy.  The plaintiff alleged that he was caused to slip on an unidentified “oily substance” in an office supplies aisle.  Video surveillance captured the incident and showed that in the 15 minutes prior to the happening of the incident, 19 individuals traversed the exact area of the fall.  There was no indication that any individual had trouble walking through the area or that anyone dropped anything.  An employee had his back turned stocking a shelf at the time, and no one notified him of any spill.

The court granted our summary judgment motion, finding that there were no items in the area of the incident that could have caused the condition to be created on the floor.  The court noted that it was pure speculation for the plaintiff to argue that defendant should have known of the condition simply due to the fact that an employee was in the general vicinity of the condition, and further, that there was no basis for a jury to determine how long the substance existed on the floor prior to the fall and whether there was a sufficient length of time for defendant to discover it.

Weiner Law Group’s nationally recognized litigation department serves as counsel to numerous national and international companies, businesses, government entities and individuals involved in disputes at the federal, state and local court levels. To learn more about these two cases, or how we may be of counsel to you, please contact Lawrence Berkeley, Jason Mastrangelo or our litigation team.

Tags: business litigation, business litigation defense, Jason Mastrangelo., lawrence m. berkeley, litigation, Weiner Law Group LLC