Assignment: Case Study

MEMORANDUM
To: John Jacobs
From: Cesar Vargas
Date: December 5, 2011

QUESTION PRESENTED 1. Is Target, liable for injuries sustained by Beth Adams, a store patron who slipped on a puddle of soda that had been pooled on the floor for a minimum of four hours? 2. Are target and its employees liable to Ann and Beth for the intentional infliction of emotional distress for the way employees handled the situation. Smith and Jones who are employees laughed, told Ann her daughter was faking her injuries, went around her daughter and failed to call 911. 3. Are target and its employees liable to Ann and Beth for the negligent infliction of emotional distress for the way employees handled the situation. Smith and Jones who are employees
At this point, Ann was hysterical because she thought her daughter might die. She urged the employees to call an ambulance. One employee, Smith, laughed it off and told Ann that her daughter appeared to be “faking” her injuries. Another employee, Jones told Ann to pick her child up off the floor, because they had to re-stock the shelves and Beth was in the way. Smith and Jones then proceeded to re-stock the beverage aisles walking around Ann and Beth, who lay unconscious on the ground. Finally, another customer in the store called
Valdez v. J. D. Diffenbaugh Co., 51 Cal. App. 3d 494, 124 Cal. Rptr. 467 (1975). Negligence has four causes of actions that all must be proven for there to be negligence. The elements of a cause of action for negligence are 1) a legal duty to use due care, 2) a breach of that duty, 3) a reasonably close causal connection between that breach and the plaintiff’s resulting injury, and 4) actual loss or damage to the plaintiff. People v. Young, 20 Cal. 2d 832, 129 P.2d 353 (1942); Ahern v. Dillenback, 1 Cal. App. 4th 36, 1 Cal. Rptr. 2d 339 (1991); see also Cal. Civ. Code §1714(a) (“everyone is responsible, not only for the result of his willful acts, but also for an injury occasioned to another by his want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his property or person, except so far as the latter has, willfully or by want of ordinary care, brought the injury upon himself”). Target has a legal duty to business invites to keeps them from harm, Target breached that duty by not having a regular inspection of the aisle and letting soda puddle on the floor that caused an injury. By not having regular inspections of the aisle Target allowed a dangerous condition to develop which if Target had regular inspection of the aisle, employees would have noticed the puddle of soda and