Walgreens
NEW ORLEANS - An appeals court has thrown out a lawsuit against Walgreens over a slip in water from a clogged toilet.
Jose Gonzalez sued the drug-store chain in Texas federal court in 2021, blaming it for injuries caused by his fall in a bathroom in Austin. The lower court and now the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit both found Walgreens had no notice of the dangerous condition.
Gonzalez tried to argue the water came seeping slowly from a leak in the toilet, which should have alerted Walgreens to the puddle. But a worker had given a customer a plunger in the minutes before to unclog a toilet.
"With no evidence of the puddle's source, it is just as likely that the customer plunged and splashed water on the ground the minute before Gonzalez entered the restroom than it is that the puddle began forming as soon as the toilet clogged (or before, as could be the case with a leak," Judge Edith Brown Clement wrote June 16.
"Thus, the district court was correct to find the evidence insufficient as to constructive knowledge."
The fall occurred at the onset of the COVID pandemic in March 2020. Surveillance footage had an unidentified man exiting the restroom at 12:28 p.m. and speaking to an employee about a clogged toilet.
The employee grabbed a plunger off the shelf and gave it to the man. Gonzalez entered the store and headed for the bathroom at 12:40, about 10 minutes after the customer had gone in with the plunger.
Gonzalez slipped in the bathroom, twisted awkwardly and noticed his left shoe was wet. The worker and Gonzalez noticed a thin layer of water covering about half of the bathroom floor.
Gonzalez's case actually proceeded to a short trial, after which the company moved for judgment on the arguments the wet floor was open and obvious and the company had no actual or constructive knowledge of the water.
The district court agreed on the second claim, leading Gonzalez to appeal. The Fifth Circuit ruled the customer was not an "agent" of Walgreens just because he was handed a plunger to take care of the toilet.
"It could be that the customer volunteered to try and unclog the toilet, rather than (Chris) Perez assigning him the task," Clement wrote. "There is no evidence that Perez demanded or required the customer to plunge the toilet. And Perez did not accompany the customer into the restroom to direct or supervise his actions."
The customer had actually failed to unclog the toilet. A plumber did later, showing the customer felt no obligation to solve the problem, only "attempt to do so."
"The customer was free to leave at any time, and he did leave before completing 'the task' he was supposedly 'assigned' - hardly an instance of control over the customer's actions," Clement wrote.
