Plaintiff beats 998 in Walmart trip-and-fall. $2.45M. San Diego County.

Facts and Background

• Facts and Background:

  On February 1, 2020, Kathy Morrow, a 58-year-old medical equipment technician, shopped at a Walmart Supercenter in El Cajon. After she finished shopping, she walked to her car and tripped and fell over a pothole in the parking lot.

• Plaintiff's Contentions:

  Building codes and photos of the pothole’s underlayment confirmed that the pothole was deeper than the 1/2-inch depth claimed by Walmart; Walmart violated its own policies and procedures regarding inspection and curing parking lot defects; the pothole was located next to a handicapped parking space; CCTV footage showed the pothole's visibility was obscured from view due to shade from a nearby parked car; CCTV footage showed that the pothole was located in a commonly traversed area of the parking lot; Walmart failed to repair the pothole timely even though it had been there since 2018; cellphone records showed plaintiff was not using her phone or distracted when she fell; that Walmart alone, not a third party, had control of the parking lot; that plaintiff’s spine surgery was a necessary and reasonable procedure that resulted from her fall.

• Defendant's Contentions:

  The pothole was 1/2 of an inch deep after being measured with a ruler by a Walmart employee and was therefore trivial in nature; plaintiff was on the phone and distracted at the time of her fall; the pothole was open, obvious and visible from a far distance; plaintiff should have walked on the adjacent sidewalk instead of through the parking lot to get to her car; the pothole was not a dangerous condition; CBRE, a third-party land owner, was responsible for parking lot repairs; and plaintiff already had a pre-existing cervical degenerative disc disease.