Premises Liability – Duty to Customers
Thursday, December 19th, 2013
Jolyn Cullum et al v. Jan McCool, et al [Walmart], S. Ct. of Tennessee-12/18/13-No. E2012-00991-SC-R11
Plaintiff was a customer of Walmart at the same time as another customer who tried to purchase some prescriptions there. The customer attempting to purchase the prescriptions was intoxicated and Walmart employees refused to fill her prescriptions. She became belligerent and was required to leave the store by its employees. When the intoxicated customer was backing her car to leave, she ran over the plaintiff in the Walmart parking lot.
This case creates an additional duty on business owners for injuries of its customers by other customers on its premises by holding that if a place of business knows that a potential customer of that place of business is intoxicated, it has a duty to another customer to protect the innocent customer. The Supreme Court suggests the defendant place of business could have placed a 911 call to police or “to protect her (the innocent customer) from foreseeable risks of harm on its property provided that any action that its duty may have required was not overly burdensome.”
The court goes on to state that “our holding does not require store employees to restrain belligerent, intoxicated patrons by physical force.”