By Jeff Lehr
jlehr@joplinglobe.com
A Jasper County jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendant Wednesday at the conclusion of the trial of a slip-and-fall lawsuit filed against a corporation that owns a Joplin convenience store.
Joplin resident Deryl H. Morgan, 67, had sued Fastrip Corp. in Jasper County Circuit Court over a fall she took June 11, 2007, inside the company’s store at 403 N. Main St. Morgan claimed that she injured her back and knee in the fall, and incurred pain and suffering as well as medical expenses.
The lawsuit alleged that she slipped on her way to the store’s dairy case in water negligently left standing on the floor in an aisle. She claimed that no signs were set out to warn customers about the wet floor.
“One minute I was standing upright walking; the next minute I was on my back, kind of stunned,” Morgan, who works as an electronics assembler in Galena, Kan., testified during the three-day trial.
She told the court that three employees helped her up from the floor and that no ambulance was called. She left the business and continued on her way to work the day of the accident, but she had to leave before her shift was up to go see a doctor about increasing pain in her knee, she told the court.
The jury decided Wednesday that the plaintiff’s attorneys, Cephus Richard III and Scott Vorhees, failed to prove negligence on the part of the convenience store, and the panel returned a verdict in favor of the defendant. Joplin attorney Ron Mitchell represented Fastrip at the trial.
