Kelley Kronenberg Partner and Business Unit Leader Aaron Neifeld secured final summary judgment and dismissal with prejudice on behalf of the defendant in a premises liability case filed in the Circuit Court of the 18th Judicial Circuit in Brevard County, Florida.  

The plaintiff alleged she slipped and fell on the top landing of an exterior staircase at a Satellite Beach restaurant, suffering a fractured hip that required two surgeries. The case was valued at $650,000. She offered several theories for the cause of her fall, including rainwater, moisture, dirt, and chipped paint on the edge of the top step. 

Aaron moved for final summary judgment on four grounds: no admissible evidence of a dangerous condition at the time of the incident, failure to prove causation, failure to establish notice under Florida’s transitory foreign substance statute, and reliance on speculation and impermissible inference stacking. 

The plaintiff’s expert inspected the staircase thirteen months after the incident and submitted an affidavit citing paint deterioration as a contributing factor. The Court found the expert’s opinions unreliable, noting the absence of any testing or methodology to support his conclusions and a substantial analytical gap between his findings and any genuine issue of material fact. The Court also rejected the plaintiff’s attempt to use the defendant’s lack of a formal inspection program as a basis for liability, finding that theory abolished under Florida law following the adoption of Section 768.0755 in 2010. 

The Court found no genuine issues of material fact warranted submitting the case to a jury and entered final summary judgment in the defendant’s favor, dismissing all claims with prejudice. 

Stay up to date on the latest developments in general liability and third-party insurance. Click here to read the latest issue of our newsletter, “In the Know: General Liability Edition.”   

Learn more about Kelley Kronenberg’s General Liability and Third-Party Insurance Defense Division. Click here.