Premises Liability: Defense Summary Judgment in an Accident Involving Rolling Chair

By Brian Butler

Many do not realize modern vehicles are always ready to record critical driving information. As with airplanes, most passenger vehicles are now equipped with Event Data Recorders (EDR), or "Black Boxes." This information may be critical after an accident to show what happened, and who was at fault.

EDRs may record pre-event data for five seconds before and one second after an accident, possibly including vehicle speed, engine speed, percent throttle, change in velocity, and whether the brakes were applied. The make and model of the vehicle will determine what data is available. If you want this data, you must act quickly because it will be “overwritten” at some point if the vehicle continues in use.

It is also important to retain a competent expert to download the data. In Laborde v. Shelter Mutual Insurance Co., 82 So. 3^rd 1237 (La. 3/9/2011), the trial court excluded the printout of data downloaded from a Black Box because of the boxes "chain of custody" and the method the information downloaded. It is important that your legal team knows how to obtain and preserve this evidence.

Data from Black Boxes can be useful in many ways. In some cases, it may help to prove that the accident involved a low impact or to show that no brakes were applied. In other cases, it may harm your position, but the data is almost always relevant. There are costs in downloading and interpreting the data. But in the right case, the secrets kept in the Black Box may be the only way to reveal the truth.

Brian has been doing defense work for the last 28 years. He has handled all types of defense matters over his career, but in recent years his practice has been focused in serious injury or damage cases and has worked extensively with experts involving complex cases, fire cases, and forensic work.

A recent decision from the Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeal re-affirms the merchant liability rules. In Carolyn R. Miller and Steven Rathjen v. Willis Communications, et. al., 19-787 (La. App. 3 Cir. 6/24/20), the plaintiff was an elderly patron of an AT&T store. Plaintiff and her daughter were assisted at the customer service desk, and plaintiff took a seat in a rolling chair. When she attempted to stand up, the rolling chair moved, and she fell to the floor breaking a hip.

Plaintiff filed suit under the merchant’s liability statute, La. R.S. 9:2800.6. Per the statute, if a negligence claim is brought against a merchant by a person lawfully on the merchant’s premises for injuries sustained because of a fall, then plaintiff must prove: 1) that the condition of the merchant’s premises presented an unreasonable risk of harm that was reasonably foreseeable; 2) that the merchant created the risk or had actual or constructive knowledge of the condition; and 3) that the merchant failed to exercise reasonable care to address the unreasonable risk of harm. Plaintiff argued that an unreasonable risk of harm was created when she was given a chair on rollers on flooring allegedly unsafe for use with a rolling chair.

The defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, which was denied by the trial court. The appellate court reversed and entered summary judgment. The appellate court found that the critical element of plaintiff’s burden of proof was missing – any defect in the rolling chair. Plaintiff admitted that the chair was not defective. Instead, she argued that she should not have been given a rolling chair to sit in because of her age, obvious mobility issues, and because the rolling chair was unsafe on the flooring of the store.

Evidence was presented that: 1) plaintiff’s daughter was able to maneuver the rolling chair without incident; 2) the daughter did not believe that plaintiff would have trouble navigating the rolling chair; and 3) no other customer had ever fallen out of one of the rolling chairs. Simply, what occurred at the AT&T store was an accident, for which AT&T and its employees were not responsible. Plaintiff, well aware of her own physical limitations, chose to sit in a rolling chair that she physically was unable to get out of on her own. Based upon this evidence, the court reasoned that plaintiff did not prove that: 1) the rolling chair posed an unreasonable risk of harm; or 2) the merchant possessed actual or constructive knowledge of any defect.

Following decisions which imposed harsh standards upon retailers, the Louisiana Legislature adopted the merchant’s liability statute to limit recovery to cases involving true negligence. The Carolyn R. Miller decision demonstrates that the statute is properly used in motion practice to resolve cases where the merchant lacks advance knowledge of the claimed unreasonable risk. Sometimes, an accident is just an accident.

Virginia “Jenny” McLin is a partner at Keogh Cox who practices in the fields of corporate litigation, insurance defense and workers compensation defense. When she is not practicing law, Jenny can be found volunteering with the Junior League of Baton Rouge; cheering for the LSU Tigers with her husband Ryan; or shuffling her two kids to and from dance practice.

In Riley v. California, 134 S. Ct. 2473, 2477, 189 L. Ed. 2d 430 (2014), the Supreme Court considered whether police officers could search the contents of a smart phone incident to an arrest. In Riley, an alleged gang member was arrested for possession of a concealed firearm. At the precinct, a police officer went through the arrestee's smart phone looking for evidence of other crimes and found a picture of the arrestee next to a car connected to a drive-by-shooting.

Before determining whether the search violated the Fourth Amendment, the Court looked to a trilogy of case.

The first two cases, Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 (1969) and U.S. v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218 (1973), held that searches incident to arrests are proper when necessary to protect evidence or officers.

The third, Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332 (2009), held that police may search a vehicle when it is reasonable to believe that evidence relevant to the crime of arrest may be found, including containers located in the vehicle.

The Supreme Court determined that none of the justifications in the above cases were present in Riley. Unlike Chimel and Robinson, neither the evidence, i.e., the phone, nor the officers were in danger. While officers may examine the physical aspects of the phone to ensure that it will not be used as a weapon, a phone, once secured, poses no threat. Further, multiple options are available to prevent the destruction of evidence without invading the privacy of the arrestee, such as disconnecting the phone from the network or placing the phone in a "Faraday bag."

The Court also considered the prosecution's argument based upon Gant, which compared a cell phone to a physical container. In rejecting this rationale, the Court commented that classifying a smart phone as a physical container is "like saying a ride on horseback is materially indistinguishable from a flight to the moon. Both are ways of getting from point A to point B, but little else justifies lumping them together." The Court's analysis was informed by the vast storage capacity of the modern cell phone.

In conclusion, the Supreme Court held that a smart phone could not be searched incident to arrest under the facts of the case. It will be interesting to observe the extent to which the Court's acknowledgment of the privacy concerns involved in smart phone technology may creep into civil discovery and evidentiary disputes.