Catherine Metcalfe v. Champlain Valley Exposition, Inc.

VERMONT SUPREME COURT Case No. 23-AP-265
109 State Street
Montpelier VT 05609-0801
802-828-4774
www.vermontjudiciary.org

Note: In the case title, an asterisk (*) indicates an appellant and a double asterisk (**) indicates a cross-
appellant. Decisions of a three-justice panel are not to be considered as precedent before any tribunal.

ENTRY ORDER

FEBRUARY TERM, 2024

Catherine Metcalfe* v. Champlain Valley } APPEALED FROM:
Exposition, Inc. }
} Superior Court, Chittenden Unit,
} Civil Division
} CASE NO. 20-CV-00439
Trial Judge: Helen M. Toor

In the above-entitled cause, the Clerk will enter:

Plaintiff appeals the trial court’s award of summary judgment to defendant in this
premises-liability action. We affirm.

The following facts are drawn from defendant’s statement of undisputed material facts
and supporting materials. In September 2017, plaintiff attended a vintage car show at the
Champlain Valley Fairgrounds in Essex Junction, which is owned and operated by defendant
Champlain Valley Exposition, Inc. While attending the show, plaintiff visited a restroom,
slipped on a wet floor, and fell to the ground.

Plaintiff testified in her deposition that she had been at the car show since 8:00 a.m. She
always used the same restroom. She said that she “must have” used the restroom earlier that day
but did not notice any wetness on the floor. When she entered the restroom prior to her fall,
around 1:00 p.m., there was a restroom attendant sitting at the door. There was no wetness or
water outside the restroom stalls. Plaintiff testified that it was dark in the stall and when she was
pulling up her pants, she noticed the floor of the stall was wet. She was wearing flip-flops with
foam bottoms. When she took a step to exit the stall, her right foot slipped out from under her.
Immediately after she fell, a restroom attendant came and began mopping around her. Several
people saw plaintiff fall but she did not know their names or the name of the restroom attendant.
Plaintiff suffered injuries to her knee and lower back.

On event days, defendant hires a maximum of six restroom attendants for the specific
purpose of cleaning the restrooms and emptying trash receptacles. Defendant hired six
attendants for the car show. When six attendants are working, each restroom is serviced at least
once an hour. If defendant is notified about a dangerous condition in a restroom, it sends an
attendant to fix the problem. At the time of the car show, no issues with leaks in the toilets or
sinks were brought to defendant’s attention, and defendant was not aware of any chronic
restroom leaks.
In September 2020, plaintiff sued defendant for negligence, asserting that defendant
failed to maintain the restroom in a reasonably safe condition.* Defendant moved for summary
judgment, arguing that plaintiff could not prove that defendant’s alleged negligence was the
proximate cause of her injury because there was no evidence of how long the water had been on
the floor. The court granted the motion, and this appeal followed.

We review a motion for summary judgment de novo using the same standard as the trial
court. Provost v. Fletcher Allen Health Care, Inc., 2005 VT 115, ¶ 10, 179 Vt. 545. “The court
shall grant summary judgment if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any
material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” V.R.C.P. 56(a). When
determining whether a genuine dispute of fact exists, we give the nonmoving party “the benefit
of all reasonable doubts and inferences,” and “accept as true the allegations made in opposition
to the motion for summary judgment, so long as they are supported by affidavits or other
evidentiary material.” Gates v. Mack Molding Co., Inc., 2022 VT 24, ¶ 13, 216 Vt. 379
(quotations omitted).

We begin by noting that plaintiff did not identify any facts that were genuinely disputed
here as required under Rule 56. Consistent with the summary judgment rule, defendant provided
a statement of undisputed material facts with citations to affidavits and other evidence that would
be admissible at trial. V.R.C.P. 56(c). Plaintiff submitted a statement of disputed facts in which
she denied some of the facts set forth by defendant, but failed to support her denials with any
citations to portions of the record that demonstrated a dispute. See id.; White v. Quechee Lakes
Landowners’ Ass’n, Inc., 170 Vt. 25, 28 (1999) (explaining that party asserting that facts are in
dispute must support allegations with affidavits or other evidentiary material). Accordingly, the
sole issue for our consideration is whether defendant was entitled to judgment as a matter of law
based on the facts presented.

“To establish negligence in a premises-liability case, as in any other negligence action,
the plaintiff must show that the defendant owed the plaintiff a legal duty, the defendant breached
that duty, the plaintiff suffered actual injury, and there is a causal link between the breach and
injury.” Bernasconi v. City of Barre, 2019 VT 6, ¶ 11, 209 Vt. 419. In Bernasconi, the plaintiff
sued the City of Barre after he fell into a hole and injured his knee while visiting graves at a city-
owned cemetery. We affirmed the trial court’s award of summary judgment to the defendant
because the plaintiff failed to provide any evidence as to how long the hole existed, and therefore
could not prove “that any lack of diligence by the City in failing to timely inspect for and repair
holes caused his injury.” Id. ¶ 13.

Similar to Bernasconi, plaintiff in this case failed to present any evidence of how long the
floor of the toilet stall had been wet prior to her fall. Without evidence of how long the floor was
wet, it would be impossible for a reasonable jury to conclude that more frequent inspections of
the restroom stalls would have led defendant to discover or prevent the condition. See id.;
Maciejko v. Lunenberg Fire Dist. No. 2, 171 Vt. 542, 543 (2000) (mem.) (explaining that
without evidence of how long sewer main had been obstructed, factfinder could not reasonably
conclude that regular maintenance would have prevented obstruction). Plaintiff did not
demonstrate that there was any chronic issue with wet floors in the restroom or that defendant
had actual notice of the dangerous condition and failed to do something about it. She therefore

*
Plaintiff also named the company that produced the vintage car show, National Street
Rod Association, Inc., as a defendant in her complaint. The parties stipulated to dismiss that
company from the case in December 2021.
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failed to meet her burden of showing that defendant’s actions or inactions proximately caused
her injury.

Plaintiff asserts that her testimony that the restroom was poorly lit was sufficient to
establish proximate cause. She does not argue that the poor lighting alone caused her injury;
rather, she claims that “due to the existence of darkness in the bathroom stalls, no attendant
would have been aware of the existence of the dangerous condition without periodically
checking the bathroom stalls and because they failed to do so, [plaintiff] was injured.” However,
there is no evidence that the attendants failed to periodically check the restroom stalls. Plaintiff’s
bald assertion that they did not do so is unsupported by any citation to the record and is
insufficient to defeat summary judgment. See Boyd v. State, 2022 VT 12, ¶ 28, 216 Vt. 272
(explaining that at summary-judgment stage, plaintiff has burden to put forth admissible
evidence to support allegations in complaint); Fuller v. City of Rutland, 122 Vt. 284, 289 (1961)
(“Evidence which merely makes it possible for the fact in issue to be as alleged, or which raises a
mere conjecture, surmise or suspicion is an insufficient foundation for a verdict.”). And,
contrary to plaintiff’s argument, the fact that an attendant mopped the floor immediately after
plaintiff fell does not create a reasonable inference that defendant was negligent in checking the
restrooms beforehand. See State v. Martin, 2007 VT 96, ¶ 37, 182 Vt. 377 (“At best, subsequent
remedial measures are considered marginally probative of prior negligence.” (quotation
omitted)). Absent any evidence of how long the floor had been wet, a reasonable jury could not
find that defendant proximately caused plaintiff’s injury by failing to adequately inspect or
maintain the premises. See Bernasconi, 2019 VT 6, ¶ 11 (“[W]here the jury could only find for
the plaintiff by relying on speculation, the defendant is entitled to judgment.”).

Affirmed.

BY THE COURT:

Paul L. Reiber, Chief Justice

Karen R. Carroll, Associate Justice

William D. Cohen, Associate Justice

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