Cipriani & Werner attorney Rebecca Sember Izsak successfully obtained dismissal of her retail client in a case where the court agreed that there were no material facts to show that the retail establishment had notice of a substance on the floor. The plaintiff-wife allegedly slipped and fell on liquid laundry detergent located in an aisle of the store. However, the plaintiffs could not establish facts to prove that the store’s associates had actual notice. Further, the plaintiff-wife failed to assert material facts at her deposition or in written discovery concerning the nature, size, or condition of the laundry detergent or a lack of adequate inspection to charge the store with constructive notice of the alleged dangerous condition.

The court rejected the plaintiff’s affidavit submitted in opposition to the motion, wherein the plaintiff-wife claimed that she overhead a conversation about a “ruckus” involving children that had occurred earlier in the day, as being competent evidence of a material fact in support of a theory that the spill resulted from the “ruckus.” The court determined that the affidavit of the plaintiff-wife concerning what she overhead and her assumptions as to the meaning behind the alleged statement she overheard was not based on personal knowledge and could not support the denial of a properly submitted Motion for Summary Judgment. Accordingly, the plaintiffs’ claims of negligence and loss of consortium were dismissed in their entirety.