Case Study | Slip Trip & Fall Accident
for a client who tripped on a freshly mopped floor at a restaurant
Our client, a guest at a fast food restaurant in Suffolk County, slipped and fell on a recently mopped section of the floor. A wet floor sign had been placed, but due to the L-shaped layout of the restaurant, the sign was not visible from the direction our client was traveling when he turned the corner and entered the wet area.
The restaurant’s insurer took the position that it bore no liability because a wet floor sign had been placed near the hazard. No settlement offer was made. The defense argued the sign constituted adequate warning and that our client should have seen it before proceeding into the wet area.
Our client entered from the top-left corner of the food service area and traveled through it toward the dining room. Upon turning the corner into the center of the dining area, he stepped directly onto the wet floor — with no prior line of sight to the warning sign.
The sign was positioned in the dining area in a location visible only to someone approaching from the far end of the room, not from the corner turn. Tables lined both sides of the dining area.
The independent witness was seated at one of those tables and observed the fall.Our attorneys located an independent witness — a diner seated in the restaurant — whose testimony established that the wet floor sign was not visible from the direction our client was traveling. This testimony was central to overcoming the defense’s sign-placement argument.
We investigated the scene, documented the L-shaped floor plan, and located a witness who had been eating at the restaurant at the time of the fall. Through her testimony, we established that the sign’s placement — though visible from one direction — provided no warning to someone rounding the corner from the food service area. The geometry of the space defeated the defense’s argument.
Our client suffered an aggravation of a pre-existing back injury. Insurance companies routinely use prior injuries to minimize the value of a claim, arguing that the accident caused little or no new damage. We documented the change in our client’s condition carefully and presented the aggravation as a compensable injury in its own right, which it is under New York law.
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