Wal-Mart Ordered to Pay $10 Million to Slip & Fall Victim

Settlement Will Be Largest in U.S. History for Slip & Fall

Former truck driver Holly Averyt was awarded in excess of $10 million dollars by a Weld County jury who found that Wal-Mart was responsible for Averyt's fall as a result of a grease spill on their property as she transferred goods from her truck up the loading dock and into the Wal-Mart.

Holly Averyt of Cheyenne, Wyoming, was delivering goods from her truck into a Wal-Mart in Greeley, Colorado when she slipped on a patch of grease and severely injured her back. The damage required her to undergo three spinal surgeries, in addition to causing her to lose her job.

The case was in limbo after a judge granted Wal-Mart a retrial, but the Colorado Supreme Court upheld the previous ruling. Initially, there was some confusion over whether Averyt's attorneys Jeffery Hill and Greg Gold were obligated to provide a city document that they uncovered detailing the grease spill. However, the court ruled that Hill and Gold were not required to supply the Wal-Mart's attorneys a document that was readily available through public records.

Lawyers for Wal-Mart had argued that the plaintiff's attorneys were required to provide all parties with the document in question, and also deemed the awarding of $15 million was "excessive, not supported by the evidence and could only be the result of prejudice and bias and the jury's desire to punish Wal-Mart."

However, the court viewed things differently: "[w]e cannot adopt a rule which would impose the burden of disclosure on one party who finds a document containing such uncertain information where the document is equally available to both parties in the public domain. In short, the report is a publicly available record that Averyt’s attorney obtained from the city of Greeley. Averyt and Wal-Mart were on equal footing with regard to the ability to obtain the report. Accordingly, we hold that [the state’s] disclosure requirements do not apply to the Greeley report and that Averyt had no duty to disclose it to Wal-Mart."

Wal-Mart offered one final retort on the case: "We respectfully disagree with the court's opinion," Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar said. "We're continuing to focus on operating a safe shopping and working environment in all our stores."

The supreme justices that reviewed the case after Wal-Mart's appeal did reduce the final compensation amount from $15 million to $10 million, approximately. This was due to a state law that limits damages awarded by a jury that are not economic.

If you are injured in a slip and fall accident in the greater Denver area, please call the Law Offices of Robert Paysinger at (303) 279-0221 for a free initial consultation. We help injured people - It's all we do!

Sources: Walmart Must Pay $10M Judgment To Holly Averyt, Truck Driver Who Slipped: Colorado Supreme Court, Colorado Supremes reinstate record slip-and-fall verdict