Miami Injury Attorney Justin Ziegler knows that in Florida, stores have a duty to warn of objects that are left in the middle of an aisle. We may have to argue this very issue in a lawsuit that we may soon file against a store, where our client was injured in a trip and fall over a container in an aisle. The following law is from the Florida personal injury lawsuit in Moultrie v. Consolidated Stores Intern. Corp. 764 So.2d 637, 25 Fla. L. Weekly D1050:

“This is an appeal of the entry of a final summary judgment with regard to appellants’ negligence action against appellee, Big Lots Store # 505. The issue presented is whether the trial court erred in granting appellee’s motion for summary judgment predicated on appellee’s argument that it had no duty to warn because the instrument that caused injury to appellant, Patricia Moultrie, was open and obvious. We reverse.

In her deposition taken April 2, 1997, Mrs. Moultrie testified that her two sons accompanied her to Big Lots Store # 505, for the purpose of buying a vacuum cleaner. Mrs. Moultrie walked down an aisle of the store to the back wall, to the area where vacuum cleaners were displayed. Mrs. Moultrie pointed to a vacuum cleaner she wanted her son to take down from the shelf. When her son reached up to get the vacuum cleaner, Mrs. Moultrie took a step backward to give him more room. As she did so, she tripped and fell on an empty wooden pallet which had been left in the aisle. The pallet was approximately six inches in height. Mrs. Moultrie acknowledged that if she had looked to the right and left sides of the floor as she traversed the aisle of the store, she would have seen the pallet. Mrs. Moultrie explained that when she enters any store, she assumes the aisles are clear and does not examine them for obstructions.

Appellee filed a motion for summary judgment with a supporting brief, alleging that the pallet was an open and obvious condition, and due to the open and obvious nature of the pallet, appellant could not recover for her injuries. At the hearing conducted on appellee’s motion for summary judgment, appellee’s counsel argued “under Florida law, a storekeeper is entitled to assume that a customer will perceive that which would be obvious to him upon the ordinary use of his senses.” Counsel further argued that appellant testified she could have seen the object if she had looked down, thus appellee was entitled to summary judgment on that ground, i.e., appellant “has avoided her duty, and that, again, the pallet is an open and obvious condition.”

Counsel further asserted that if the pallet were on a sidewalk that one traversed every day, it would be open and obvious and one would walk around it. However, a store arranges its displays for eye appeal. Since appellant was focused on purchasing a vacuum cleaner that was positioned on a shelf approximately four to five feet off the floor, she did not see the pallet when she walked by it. The trial court granted appellee’s motion for summary final judgment, presumably persuaded that the pallet which resulted in appellant’s injury constituted an open and obvious condition.

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