HOUSTON - Walmart has defeated a trip-and-fall lawsuit brought against it in Houston, as a federal judge there has found small irregularities in parking lots like the one at issue are not unreasonably dangerous.
Judge Kenneth Hoyt on Nov. 6 ruled against Maria Vargas, who sued Walmart Stores Texas earlier this year after falling at a Walmart in Sugar Land.
Her suit claimed in June 2020, she fell over a raised cement bump that was not marked. She alleged this cement bump was a dangerous condition that posed an unreasonable risk of harm.
But Hoyt looked to a 2022 Texas Supreme Court decision in a case involving United Supermarkets. Minor defects in pavement are common and often naturally occurring, he wrote.
"In the present case, Walmart provides photographic evidence of the parking lot defect, showing that the divot in question is less than one inch deep, mirroring the factual circumstances in McIntire," Hoyt wrote.
"This evidence suggests that the defect was neither unusual nor substantial enough to be considered unreasonably dangerous as a matter of law."
Sherie McIntire's lawsuit against United Supermarkets, which owns a Market Street grocery store in Frisco, involved a 3/4-inch divot in the parking lot's pavements.
McIntire's heel got caught in the divot and her ankles buckled, she said. She broke her foot and leg.
“In sum, we hold that the divot that allegedly caused McIntire’s injuries was not unreasonably dangerous as a matter of law,” the Texas Supreme Court opinion states.
“We emphasize that in so holding, we make no broad pronouncements on whether pavement defects constitute unreasonably dangerous conditions, and we do not opine on whether another larger or differentially situated defect could pose an unreasonable risk of harm. However, the defect at issue here did not."
The decision reversed a state appeals court, which had reversed a trial court ruling in favor of the grocer.
In Vargas' case against Walmart, she argued more discovery could help her case, but Edison refused.
"(B)ased on the clear photographic evidence and the Texas Supreme Court's ruling in McIntire, the Court finds that no additional discovery is likely to change the dispositive fact that the defect is too minor to support a claim of dangerousness," he wrote.