Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Chavez

WAL-MART STORES, INC., et al. v. DIMAS CHAVEZ, et al.

No. 547

COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS OF MARYLAND

September Term, 2017

August 17, 2018

Circuit Court for Montgomery County

Case No. 401761V

UNREPORTED

Meredith, Arthur, Sharer, J. Frederick (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.

Opinion by Arthur, J.

*This is an unreported opinion, and it may not be cited in any paper, brief, motion, or other document filed in this Court or any other Maryland Court as either precedent within the rule of stare decisis or as persuasive authority. Md. Rule 1-104.

A motorist lost control of his car and crashed through the fire doors of a store, grievously injuring a customer. The customer filed suit, alleging that the storeowner breached a duty to take reasonable steps to protect its customers against the foreseeable risk of these sorts of vehicle-into-building crashes. The Circuit Court for Montgomery County submitted the case to a jury, which returned a multi-million dollar verdict against the storeowner. The storeowner appealed.

We conclude that the admissible evidence at trial was sufficient to support the jury verdict, but that the court committed prejudicial error in a number of evidentiary rulings. Consequently, we must reverse the judgment and remand the case for a new trial.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On July 23, 2013, appellees Dimas Chavez and his wife were shopping at a Sam's Club store in Gaithersburg, when they decided to stop for lunch at the store's café. As Mr. Chavez waited in line to order lunch, a car burst through the nearby fire doors, smashed into the counter along which the queue ran, and struck Mr. Chavez. Mr. Chavez suffered serious injuries, which resulted in the amputation of his leg. He and his wife brought suit against Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., and Sam's East, Inc. (collectively "Wal-Mart"), as well as the driver of the automobile that crashed through the fire doors and the owner of the property on which the store was built.¹

The store in this case, though built close to three decades before the accident, had been renovated in 2010 to add the café. The café was located just behind the store's front wall, which had been moved approximately 20 feet closer to the parking lot during the renovations. The drive aisles in the parking lot had been reconfigured during the renovation, so that a one-way drive aisle was aimed directly at the steel fire doors in the new front wall. A photograph of the store and a video-recording of the accident show that there is no curb between the parking lot and the pedestrian walkway.²

The Chavezes' principal theory of liability was that it is foreseeable that drivers sometimes lose control of their vehicles in parking lots (whether because of medical emergencies, inattention or driver error, or mechanical malfunctions) and crash into buildings. A storeowner like Wal-Mart, the Chavezes contended, has a duty to take reasonable steps to protect its customers against the foreseeable risk that a driver will lose control of a vehicle, crash into the store, and injure customers. The Chavezes called an expert to opine that Wal-Mart had an obligation to install steel safety bollards in front of the areas of the store that are vulnerable to a vehicle-into-building crash, particularly areas where customers are likely to congregate. According to the Chavezes' expert, if Wal-Mart had installed safety bollards in front of the fire doors in the Gaithersburg store,the bollards would have prevented the driver from crashing through the doors and injuring Mr. Chavez.

On May 23, 2016, a jury found in favor of the Chavezes on all counts and awarded them damages in the amount of $6,476,550.60, which included $3,755,000.00 in noneconomic damages. Wal-Mart filed a timely motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, a new trial, and remittitur.³

On May 2, 2017, the trial court granted the motion for remittitur, reducing the noneconomic damages to $770,000.00 under Maryland Code (1974, 2013 Repl. Vol.), § 11-108 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article, and reducing the total amount of the judgment to $3,491,550.60. The court, however, denied the remaining motions. This timely appeal followed.

QUESTIONS PRESENTED

Wal-Mart raises six questions, which we have consolidated, reordered, and rephrased for concision and clarity:

I. Did the circuit court err in denying Wal-Mart's motions for judgment and for judgment notwithstanding the verdict?

II. Did the trial court err or abuse its discretion in allowing the Chavezes to assert facts not in evidence in cross-examining Wal-Mart's corporate representative and expert?

III. Did the trial court abuse its discretion in denying Wal-Mart's motion for a mistrial after the mention of property insurance during voir dire?

IV. Did the trial court abuse its discretion in denying Wal-Mart's motion for a mistrial when the Chavezes referred to facts not in evidence in closing argument?⁴

For the reasons stated in this opinion, we conclude that the circuit court did not err in submitting the case to the jury and in denying Wal-Mart's post-trial motion forjudgment notwithstanding the verdict. We also conclude, however, that the court committed prejudicial error in permitting the Chavezes to assert facts that were not in evidence while cross-examining Wal-Mart's witnesses. For that reason, we must reverse the judgment and remand for a new trial. In view of our disposition of the first two issues, it is unnecessary to address the others.

DISCUSSION

I. MOTIONS FOR JUDGMENT AND JUDGMENT NOTWITHSTANDING THE VERDICT

Wal-Mart complains of the denial of its motion for judgment at the close of all the evidence and the denial of its motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict.⁵ In essence, Wal-Mart argues that the Chavezes did not establish the existence of a duty to install bollards outside the fire doors at the Gaithersburg store. We disagree.

Wal-Mart does not and cannot dispute that it had some duty of care to its customers, the Chavezes: the Chavezes were business invitees - i.e., persons who were invited or permitted to be on Wal-Mart's premises for purposes related to Wal-Mart's business. See Maryland Civil Pattern Jury Instruction 24:2. Wal-Mart owes its invitees a duty to ensure that they can "traverse the public portions of its property withoutunreasonable risk of injury to themselves." Dalmo Sales of Wheaton, Inc. v. Steinberg, 43 Md. App. 659, 665 (1979); accord Maryland Civil Pattern Jury Instruction 24.3 (owner or occupier of land has a duty "to use reasonable care to see that those portions of the property that the invitee may be expected to use are safe"). Hence, the issue before us is not whether Wal-Mart had any duty at all, which would be a pure question of law. Corinaldi v. Columbia Courtyard, Inc., 162 Md. App. 207, 218 (2005). Instead, the issue is the nature and scope of Wal-Mart's duty, which is a question that "depends for its resolution upon the facts proved in the record." Dalmo, 43 Md. App. at 665; accord Crise v. Maryland Gen'l Hosp., Inc., 212 Md. App. 492, 523-24 (2013).

In reviewing the denial of a motion for judgment that depends for its resolution upon the facts proved in the record, this Court "perform[s] the same task as the trial court, affirming the denial of the motion 'if there is "any evidence, no matter how slight, that is legally sufficient to generate a jury question."'" Prince George's Cnty. v. Morales, 230 Md. App. 699, 711 (2016) (quoting C & M Builders, LLC v. Strub, 420 Md. 268, 291 (2011), which quoted Tate v. Board of Educ. of Prince George's Cnty., 155 Md. App. 536, 544-45 (2004)). "We assume the truth of all credible evidence on the issue, and all fairly deducible inferences therefrom," and we view the evidence and those inferences "in the light most favorable to the party against whom the motion is made." Orwick v. Moldawer, 150 Md. App. 528, 531 (2003) (citation omitted).

The denial of Wal-Mart's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict "is reviewed under the same standard as [the] denial of a motion for judgment." PrinceGeorge's Cnty. v. Morales, 230 Md. App. at 712. "[W]e must assume the truth of all evidence (together with all inferences that may naturally and legitimately be deduced from it) tending to support [the Chavezes'] factual allegations and theory of recovery." Dalmo, 43 Md. App. at 665. "'[O]nly where reasonable minds cannot differ in the conclusions to be drawn from the evidence, after it has been viewed in the light most favorable to the [nonmoving party], does the issue in question become one of law for the court and not of fact for the jury.'" Elste v. ISG Sparrows Point, LLC, 188 Md. App. 634, 648 (2009) (second alteration in original) (quoting Giant Food, Inc. v. Booker, 152 Md. App. 166, 177-78 (2003)).

In Dalmo this Court examined the scope of a storeowner's duty to protect a customer against vehicle-into-building crashes. Writing for the Court, Judge Wilner phrased the question as follows: "Given the existing layout of the property, was the possibility that a car might come over the sidewalk and strike a pedestrian who was lawfully thereon a reasonably foreseeable one that [the storeowner] had a duty to anticipate and guard against?" Dalmo, 43 Md. App. at 665.

In that case "there was no barrier, in the form of a curb, wheel blocks, or bollards, to inhibit automobiles parked or being driving on the parking lot from encroaching on the sidewalk." Id. at 663. Instead, "the parking lot sloped up to meet the sidewalk at grade, leaving somewhat of a rut or gully just before the two joined." Id. In a freakish series of events, a parked car lurched across the sidewalk because a careless motorist was attempting to jump-start it while it was in gear (or because its defective transmissionallowed it to slip into gear when he jump-started it). Id. at 663-64. The car pinned the plaintiff's legs against the 16-inch high base of the store's outer wall "and threw her torso backward through the plate glass window."...