Negligence and liability in Jones v. The Wonderful Supermarket

TWS Liability

Ms. Jones slipping on a banana peel on her way into the Wonderful Supermarket is unfortunate. While there are factors that make TWS look negligent, this case is far from simple in that Ms. Jones at least partially contributed to her own injury and the fact she suffered very similar injuries just six months prior complicates what can be attributed to TWS and what is attributable to the prior accident.

Problems for Ms. Jones

There are a couple of facts and circumstances that do not help Ms. Jones' case against TWS. First, the fact that she is near-sighted and that she took her glasses off after she parked her car but before she made entry into the supermarket raises the idea that she would have clearly seen the banana peel had she had her glasses on. Another factor that does not help Ms. Jones is that she suffered a very similar injury just six months prior to the TWS incident. This could lead people to believe that the removal of her glasses might have contributed to that accident as well and/or that she is accident-prone. Also, it would be much easier to suggest that the currently existing aches and pains are at least in part from the prior accident.

Verdict

What is clear from the facts above is that both Ms. Jones and TWS, both in their own ways, contributed to the accident. The verdict for this case would depend on what state the case is being tried in. If the case is being held in Alabama, Washington DC, Maryland, North Carolina or Virginia, the ruling would have to be for TWS and against Ms. Jones because those states follow the rule of contributory negligence ("Car accident defenses:," 2012). What this would mean to Ms. Jones is that if she is at fault in any way, she would be unable to recover any damages from TWS.

If, on the other hand, the states in question follows the practice of comparative negligence, then it is pretty clear that it comes down to how much Ms. Jones is at fault and how much TWS is at fault. Since TWS specifically raised comparative negligence as a defense, it stand to reason that this is the prevailing legal doctrine. To that end, the judge should rule that TWS is 50% at fault and that Ms. Jones is 50% at fault. The Latin term for this is in pari delicto ("In pari delicto," 2011). As such, Ms. Jones would recover one half of her requested judgment for medical bills related directly to the accident at TWS but not all of monies she spent because she does not have clean hands. Clean hands is a legal doctrine that stipulates that people that contribute to or cause their own misfortune stand to lose some or all of their rights to recover damages or otherwise take legal action.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, Ms. Jones certainly was a victim to negligence on the part of TWS and/or its subcontractor. However, Ms. Jones quite possibly could have prevented the accident in the first place had she not contributed to her own misfortune. As such, she is not entitled to recover all of her expenses back from TWS.