Wongsing v. Wal-Mart Real Estate Business Trust

Background

Laura Wongsing sued Wal-Mart Real Estate Business Trust, Wal-Mart Stores East, LP, Walmart Inc., and Walmart Supercenter Store #2104 over injuries she allegedly suffered after falling in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart store. She said that, while walking from the store to her car on August 27, 2019, her left foot caught on a raised portion of asphalt near yellow-painted lines, causing her to fall.

The defendants removed the case from New York state court to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. They then moved for summary judgment under Rule 56. Summary judgment is a decision without a trial when the evidence shows that no reasonable jury could find for the opposing party on an important fact.

Legal framework

New York law governed Wongsing’s premises-negligence claim, while federal law governed the summary-judgment procedure. To establish premises liability, Wongsing had to show that the defendants owed her a duty, breached that duty, and caused her injury. She also had to show that the defendants created the dangerous condition or had actual or constructive notice of it. Constructive notice means that the condition was visible and apparent and existed long enough that the defendants should have discovered and corrected it.

The defendants relied on New York’s trivial-defect doctrine. Under that doctrine, a defect may be too insignificant to support negligence liability as a matter of law. But the court must consider the defect’s size and physical characteristics, along with the surrounding circumstances, including whether the defect was difficult to detect or located where pedestrians might naturally be distracted.

Why the court denied summary judgment

The court first ruled that Wongsing could rely on her argument that the condition caused optical confusion and could use her affidavit. The court found that her affidavit explained and expanded on, rather than contradicted, her deposition testimony. The court also found that her complaint gave the defendants sufficient notice that she claimed the uneven parking-lot surface was dangerous because it was difficult to detect.

The court then found a genuine factual dispute about whether the defect was trivial. Although the alleged height difference was approximately seven-eighths of an inch, the court explained that size alone does not decide whether a defect is legally actionable. Wongsing’s expert described the edge as sharp and abrupt and said that it could catch a shoe. The evidence also indicated that the uneven asphalt was near a store entrance, parking spaces, and a roadway; that the raised and sunken asphalt had similar coloring; and that the yellow line continued across the change in elevation without clearly marking it. A reasonable jury could find that these circumstances made the condition more dangerous and harder to detect.

The court also found factual disputes about constructive notice. Photographs and testimony could support findings that the condition was visible and apparent and had existed for a sufficient period before Wongsing’s fall. The evidence included a weed, gravel, grit, dirt, faded yellow paint, and deteriorated asphalt. Wongsing’s expert opined that the deterioration had existed for at least weeks. The court held that a jury, rather than the court on summary judgment, had to determine how long the condition existed and whether the defendants had enough time to discover and remedy it.

The court rejected Wongsing’s argument that the defendants created the defect as too speculative, but it did not need to resolve that issue because the motion failed on the trivial-defect and constructive-notice issues.

Outcome

Judge Judith C. McCarthy denied the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The ruling did not decide that the defendants were liable or that Wongsing would prevail; it held that the evidence presented factual questions that could not be resolved on the motion.