$2.7M verdict after a three-wheeled shopping cart tipped and threw an 88-year-old shopper to the floor
Tennessee's cap cut the judgment to about $840,000. The cart maintenance vendor was out of the case before trial.
Amount awarded by the jury $2,700,000 Shelby County Circuit Court · January 2019 · Shelby County, Tennessee
A Shelby County jury awarded $2.7 million to an 88-year-old shopper who fell when her grocery store cart tipped over in August 2016.
She had used the cart for about half an hour. Near the end of her trip, with the cart loaded, she turned right and it tipped, pulling her to the floor. The cart turned out to be missing a wheel, which was never found. She fractured her thigh, had hip surgery and spent two weeks in a rehabilitation center. She testified that she could no longer drive, cook for her family or walk without help.
The store’s managers testified that baggers were coached to pull wobbly or three-wheeled carts, but that there was no written corporate policy on cart inspections. The store also had a contract with an outside company for periodic cart maintenance. The trial court granted that company summary judgment before trial.
After a January 2019 trial, the jury found the store 100% at fault and awarded $100,000 in economic damages and $2.6 million in non-economic damages. The court cut the non-economic award to $750,000 under Tennessee’s statutory cap and trimmed the economic award to $90,114.80, for a judgment of about $840,000. The Court of Appeals affirmed in July 2020.
Source: Court of Appeals of Tennessee at Jackson, No. W2019-00496-COA-R3-CV, opinion filed July 16, 2020 (appeal from Shelby County Circuit Court, No. CT-003147-17)
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