You might wake up tomorrow with much worse pain. You should also take photos of the incident. For example, if you slipped on a fruit — take a photo of the fruit. Or if you tripped on a cable — take a photo of the cable. Or perhaps you cut yourself badly on a sharp piece of metal — take a photo of it.
If your clothing was wet from slipping in a puddle of water, take pictures of the wet marks. Preserve your footwear. Often our clients are accused of wearing worn-out shoes, especially flip flops. Finally, you should save all receipts, pay stubs, invoices and tax returns since your accident.
These can be used to prove your loss of earnings, medical bills and other expenses. File a Personal Injury Claim Filing a personal injury claim following an injury in a Publix Store can help you receive the compensation you deserve.
Avoiding Low Ball Settlement Offers Although being greedy is a mistake, so too is accepting a low ball settlement offer. Your personal injury attorney will help collect the crucial evidence needed. Share: Email Facebook Twitter Pinterest. This is the header.
This is the header two. Office Hours. Take for example the case of Caridad Dominguez, who was represented by another law firm, and claimed to have fallen on a patch of laundry detergent that had seeped out of a bottle that had fallen from the shelf. In total, the spill had been on the floor for only thirteen seconds at the time of the fall. Dominguez sued Publix, alleging that they were negligent in the manner in which they maintained the store. Dominguez, if and when they defeated her in trial.
While he was straddling the bottle and spill, Ms. Dominguez rounded the corner, approaching the scene from behind the manager, when she stepped into the spill and fell. At the close of the testimony, Publix moved for a Directed Verdict, a legal maneuver made to deny a plaintiff the chance to have a jury render a verdict by asking the trial judge to evaluate the evidence and then dismiss the case.
The trial judge agreed with Publix and dismissed the case. Dominguez, pursuant to their proposal for settlement. Dominguez appealed to the Third District Court of Appeal, which reasoned that the issue in this case is not whether Publix failed to warn Ms. Dominguez of the spill, which it somehow considered to be an open and obvious condition.
Instead, the court perceived the issue to be whether or not Publix used ordinary care to maintain its premises in a reasonably safe condition. Although Joseph contends that "the facts in this case clearly demonstrate that [her] working conditions at Store no. Plaintiff Response at 4. For any Plaintiff to be successful on a constructive discharge claim, "the trier of fact must be satisfied that the Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Powell Elec. Given this well accepted understanding of what constitutes a prima facie case of constructive discharge, the Court has little difficulty finding Ms. Joseph's claim deficient. Specifically, a successful claim for constructive discharge must contain an element of discharge.
In other words, a Plaintiff must leave her employ. It is illogical to find a "reasonable person" could not continue working at the job in question, and then find that Ms. Joseph in fact was able to continue working for Publix for 10 months after. In the end, to the extent cases concerning the elements for finding constructive discharge have not heretofore explicitly stated an essential element to be that Plaintiff must actually leave her work this Court has little difficulty adding that element to an examination of these claims.
Since Ms. Joseph did not leave Publix's employ until 10 months after the incidents which she claims gave rise to her discharge, the Court dismisses this claim and GRANTS Defendant's motion on this issue. Joseph claims she was subjected to a hostile work environment.
The elements for showing a claim of hostile work environment, although generally found in sexual harassment cases, are well known:. Robertson v. Alabama Dept. Affairs, F. Dundee, F. Joseph, as a black woman of Haitian descent, is a member of several protected classes.
As well, Chip Lee's comments, chronicled above, relate directly to her protected status. Lee repeatedly made offensive comments to Ms. Joseph that referred to her country of origin Haiti and her race. However, no examples of any harassment have been produced to show Mr. Lee or any other employee of Publix ever made harassing comments to Ms. Joseph based on her gender. As a result, Ms. Joseph's claims for hostile work environment based on her gender are unsupported in the record, and will not be discussed further.
Element 2, the requirement that the harassment was "unwelcome" requires some quick discussion. As articulated by the Supreme Court, "so long as the environment would reasonably be perceived, and is perceived, as hostile or abusive Vinson, U. In this case, some evidence has been presented by Defendant that Ms.
Joseph did not find Lee's comments offensive or hostile. The testimony of Chip Lee, and another co-worker of Ms. Joseph, a Ms. Debbie Self, point to the fact that any racial comments made by Lee were during the course of friendly, albeit highly charged, political discussions.
Self, Ms. Joseph "had come in on her days off just to talk with Chip Lee about Farrakan and anything political having to do with black and white They would laugh and argue and they would laugh at each other. And there was I don't believe she really believed he was a racist at all.
It is true that "mere utterance of an Meritor, at 67, S. However, in this case the issue before the Court is whether, in the context of a motion for summary judgment, could the working situation at Store 80 be considered by a reasonable person to create a hostile working environment. Lee's alleged comments, taken as a whole, might according to a reasonable person rise to the level of a hostile working environment.
Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc. Joseph found her working environment sufficiently unpleasant to report it to higher management in May As well, on at least two occasions, Ms.
Joseph became so upset at work she suffered bouts of crying and emotional distress. Although much question remains whether Ms. Joseph's treatment at Publix was motivated by a discriminatory purpose by her managers, in the context of this motion the Court finds evidence has been put forward to support a finding that a reasonable person would find the working conditions at Store 80 were sufficiently unpleasant as to be hostile.
As well, the Court finds Ms. Joseph found them subjectively hostile, and suffered a concomitant alteration of her working conditions as a result of her perception. Joseph's claims satisfy the first four 4 elements described above. The fifth 5 and last element, "respondeat superior", is related to the principle that "employers are not automatically liable for hostile work environment City of Boca Raton, F. First, "an employer may be held indirectly, or vicariously liable for hostile environment Second, an employer may be "directly liable for hostile environment See generally Reynolds v.
CSX Transp. Offshore Shipbuilding, Inc. Roger Dean Chevrolet, Inc. Indirect Liability: Although the issue of Publix's indirect liability has been largely ignored by the parties, a review of current caselaw makes clear Publix cannot be held liable under this theory. To be indirectly liable, the harassment must be "accomplished by an instrumentality of the agency or through conduct associated with the agency status.
The Eleventh Circuit recently ruled that "in a pure hostile environment case, a supervisor's harassing conduct is typically outside the scope of his employment. In this case, absolutely no evidence or argument has been produced to show that Chip Lee harassed Joseph "in order to perform any service for [Publix] or that [he] was either explicitly or implicitly authorized by [Publix] to engage in such harassment.
As a result, this theory of recovery is untenable. This is also a failure of evidence to show Lee was aided in accomplishing the harassment by the existence of his agency relationship with Publix. Again, the Court is guided by the recent decision in Faragher. In cases outside the sexual harassment arena, it seems to this Court that liability under this theory is very hard to articulate. Nonetheless, in this instance, it is clear to the Court that Lee did not use his agency relationship to further his harassment.
He took no adverse employment actions against Joseph. Indeed, the evidence is clear that Ms. Joseph enjoyed relative professional success for much of the time Lee's harassment is alleged to have occurred. She remained full time, she was given a stock position, and, when her forays into the management trainee program failed, she returned to a full-time position in the bakery department. As well, Ms. Joseph has not alleged Lee's comments worked in any way to chill her management aspirations.
Joseph has failed to make a prima facie case of Publix's indirect liability for any alleged harassment suffered at the hands of Mr. As a result, Publix cannot be held liable under this theory. Direct Liability: As noted above, Publix is directly liable if it knew or should have known of the harassment and failed to take prompt remedial action.
The initial question to answer is did Publix know of the harassment? See also Kilgore v. In this case, Ms. Joseph alleges she gave explicit notice to Publix of Chip Lee's harassment on two separate occasions. On both occasions, notice to Publix was accomplished through the conversations with Mr. Reggie Brown detailed earlier. As to the initial meeting, in March , the Court finds that, as a matter of law, it cannot constitute notice to Publix of the hostile work environment which Ms.
Joseph claims existed. This is so for two reasons. First, Brown is not the appropriate individual to report instances of harassment, and does not constitute higher management. Second, even if Brown was higher management, by Joseph's own testimony, her conversation of March did not contain any allegations of harassment by Lee, and by Joseph's own admissions, Lee's harassment did not begin until after she talked to Brown.
According to Brown, "I told her the best thing that I could tell her is to express her career opportunities or goals as she would like with the company with the management, and then go from there I told her if she needed me or ever had any, I guess, things for me to do to try to help her, that I would, to call me. On hearing of Joseph's concerns, Brown specifically directed her to talk to management, and then clearly informed her he intended to take no action unless she called him.
Thus, Joseph was aware her "complaint" of March , would not receive further attention unless she contacted Reggie Brown again. Further, even if she had intended for Reggie Brown to conduct further investigation, that investigation would not have looked into any alleged harassment because, as yet, no harassment had occurred. As a result, it is impossible to find the conversation between Ms. Joseph and Reggie Brown constitutes, under any view of the facts, notice to "higher management.
As to Joseph's phone call to Brown of May 1, , Publix admits this constitutes notice. Joseph clearly detailed in an instance of inappropriate and offensive conduct by Chip Lee. Brown immediately notified his superiors of the comment, and an investigation was begun. As a result of the investigation, Chip Lee was counseled, although never publicly reprimanded.
The question still remains whether the investigation, initiated immediately after the May 1, call, constitutes "prompt and remedial action" necessary to shield Publix from liability for Lee's harassment. Elf Atochem N. In this case, under all the circumstances as revealed to the Court, it is impossible to find that Publix's response to the complaint was neither prompt nor remedial.
The evidence is uncontroverted Publix immediately acted on Joseph's complaint. Prior to the call of May 1, , Publix had no direct knowledge of Lee's harassment of Joseph. As soon as Lee's comments were brought to the attention of higher management, Publix investigated the incident, and counseled Lee. No further comments were ever made by Lee.
As a result, the Court finds that when Publix was made aware of the alleged harassment, prompt remedial action was taken. The final issue raised is Joseph's allegations that Publix should have known of the harassment prior to May 1, , thereby holding Publix liable under a theory of constructive knowledge. The basis of Joseph's allegations rest, almost entirely, on one argument. Joseph argues the climate assessment survey of March , which contained specific complaints about the bakery department, constitutes evidence of the pervasive nature of Lee's harassment and should therefore serve to create constructive knowledge of the hostile work environment engendered by Chip Lee.
On reading the above comments, it is impossible for the Court to see how these vague and general complaints, interspersed throughout the survey with comments bemoaning the mistreatment of white employees compared to minorities, [12] can constitute constructive knowledge of Chip Lee's harassment of Joseph.
None of the comments talks of harassment in any sense. In the end, the Court finds no reasonable juror, confronted with nothing more than these vague complaints, could find the harassment at Store 80 so pervasive that Publix should have known of Lee's harassment prior to Joseph's complaint of May 1,
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