The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit revived a slip-and-fall suit against Costco, concluding questions of fact remain regarding whether the corporation had enough notice to identify and clean up a spilled smoothie the plaintiff claims to have slipped on.
On Monday, the court reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Costco in a woman’s personal injury and negligence claims. While the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois concluded Costco didn’t have constructive notice of the spill, the appellate court determined that evidence in the record established genuine issues of material fact regarding how long the smoothie was on the floor, whether Costco should have known about the slip, and whether the store beached its duty to maintain reasonably safe conditions.