Why a $1.3 Million Slip-and-Fall Verdict Was Thrown Out, and How to Protect Your Own Case

Published March 25, 2025 · Ohio Appeals Courts

A woman walks up to the counter of a sandwich shop to pick up her order, slips, and lands hard on her knee. Her kneecap is fractured, and it takes two surgeries to repair. A jury hears the case and awards her $1.3 million.

Then, on March 13, 2025, an Ohio appeals court took the entire verdict away. The case is Trout v. Shani DEV8, L.L.C., 2025-Ohio-832 (8th Dist.), and the reason it was reversed has nothing to do with how badly she was hurt. It came down to one question every fall case has to answer: how long was the hazard there?

What happened

According to the Eighth District's opinion, Cheryl Trout went to a Mr. Hero restaurant in Brook Park, near Cleveland, in June 2021. She ordered at the counter and sat by the window. When her food was ready, she walked back toward the counter by a slightly different route, slipped, and fell. Sitting on the floor, she felt something wet soaking into her pants. She had not noticed any liquid before or after the fall, and the restaurant's owners testified that they saw nothing on the floor.

One of the owners reviewed the store's surveillance video, starting about five minutes before the fall. He said it showed no one spilling anything in that window. He also agreed, when asked, that someone could have spilled something 20 minutes earlier and he would not have seen it on the portion he watched. The video was never saved, and after seven days the system automatically recorded over it.

At trial, the jury also heard evidence about the franchisor's operating manual, including rules about cleaning during slow periods, floor mats, and employee training. The jury found the restaurant negligent and awarded $1.3 million in noneconomic damages.

Why the verdict was reversed

Ohio law does not make a store or restaurant automatically responsible for every fall on its floor. As the Eighth District explained, a customer injured by a hazard on the floor generally has to prove one of three things:

1. The business created the hazard (an employee spilled the drink or mopped without a sign);
2. The business actually knew about the hazard and did not fix it or warn of it; or
3. The business had "constructive notice," meaning the hazard was there long enough that a reasonably careful business would have found and fixed it.

In Trout, everyone agreed the restaurant did not put the liquid on the floor and did not know it was there. So the case depended entirely on constructive notice, and constructive notice depends on time.

The court held there was no evidence of how long the liquid had been on the floor. The theory that it had been there for five to 20 minutes was, in the court's words, built on "conjecture," pieced together from the five minutes of video the owner watched and his agreement that a spill could have happened earlier. The court also held that the franchisor's internal cleaning rules did not substitute for proof of time; even with those rules in evidence, the customer still had to show how long the hazard existed. Agreeing with a recent decision from the Toledo-based Sixth District, the court added that even five minutes of a nearly invisible wet spot would not be enough, because holding otherwise would make the business strictly liable.

Because the appeals court found no evidence of constructive notice, it reversed and ordered judgment for the restaurant. The jury's view of the injury never mattered.

Who this hurts

This kind of ruling is hard on injured people, and it is worth saying so plainly. Spills in restaurants and stores are, by their nature, often clear, quick, and unwitnessed. The person who falls is the last one to know how the liquid got there. The business controls the video, the cleaning logs, and the employees. When the law requires proof of time, the evidence that would supply it is almost always in the hands of the business.

That is exactly why the first days after a fall matter so much.

How to protect your own case

The lesson of Trout is not that fall cases cannot be won. It is that they are won with specific evidence, gathered early. In our experience, the evidence that answers the "how long" question includes:

• Surveillance video, preserved quickly. In Trout, the system overwrote itself in seven days. Many systems keep footage for less. A written demand to preserve all footage from the area, for an extended window before and after the fall, should go out within days. Video that shows the spill happening, or shows customers walking around the spot for a half hour, answers the question directly. Our guide chapter on gathering evidence while it still exists explains how preservation letters work.
• What the hazard looked like. Photographs of the substance matter. Footprints or cart tracks through a puddle, dirt in the liquid, dried edges, or a sticky film can all show a hazard was there for a while. If you can, photograph it before anyone cleans it up. Our first 72 hours chapter has a checklist.
• Witnesses. Other customers or employees who saw the spot earlier, or saw someone spill something, are often the best evidence of time. Get names and phone numbers before they leave.
• The incident report and cleaning records. Ask the manager to make an incident report, and have your lawyer request floor-inspection and cleaning logs for that day. Records showing no one checked the area for hours can matter, as long as there is also evidence the hazard was present during that period.
• Your own records. Keep copies of everything, including your medical records and receipts, as described in our chapter on preserving documents and records.

We wrote about the urgency of preserving video in our post on grocery store falls and surveillance video. Trout is a $1.3 million illustration of why it matters.

What this means for you

If you fall in a store, restaurant, or other business here in the Dayton area, the strength of your case may be decided in the first week, long before anyone talks about damages. A serious injury does not prove fault, and a sympathetic jury cannot fill a gap in the evidence. The proof of how long a hazard existed has to be found while it still exists.

Report the fall before you leave, photograph the spot and the substance, get witness names, and get medical care. Then call a lawyer who can send preservation demands immediately. Our premises liability page explains how these claims work in Ohio.