Walgreens Co. v. Maria Victoria Chaux
Walgreens appealed a $5.5 million jury verdict in a slip-and-fall case where plaintiff Chaux suffered a brain injury at a checkout lane. The Third DCA reversed on two independent grounds: (1) the trial court imposed a burden-shifting spoliation sanction after both parties rested, contradicting its pre-trial announcement that only an adverse inference instruction would be given — a due process violation; and (2) the trial court abused its discretion by excluding Walgreens' expert Dr. Goldstein under Daubert when his causation opinion was based on a reliable review of medical records.
Key facts
- Maria Victoria Chaux fell and lost consciousness in a Walgreens checkout lane, suffering a brain injury; she sued Walgreens for negligence and sought preservation of CCTV surveillance footage, but Walgreens represented there was no footage of the incident.
- Before trial the trial court entered a spoliation sanctions order finding Walgreens had a duty to preserve the video but repeatedly stated it would impose only an adverse-inference instruction, not a burden-shifting presumption; after both parties rested at trial, the court reversed course and gave a burden-shifting jury instruction that deemed Chaux to have established constructive notice of a dangerous condition unless Walgreens disproved it.
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Holdings
- Imposition of a burden-shifting spoliation sanction after a party rests is a due process violation where the sanction contradicts the trial court's pre-trial announcement that only an…
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Why it matters
Reinforces due process requirements in spoliation sanctions: trial courts must give defendants advance notice of the full scope of any sanction before they present their case-in-chief. An expert opinion based on medical… — full analysis with a trial
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