How to divide the responsibility of men who mistakenly take the supermarket loading platform as an exit and fall off？
After shopping in a supermarket in Fengxian county, a man found that the supermarket had already left work and was ready to leave by himself. He found a shutter door on the second floor of the supermarket. He opened the door and prepared to go out. However, he just stepped on it, only to find that it was empty and fell directly from the second floor, causing multiple fractures in his body. How to divide the responsibility for this accident? Recently, Xuzhou Intermediate People’s Court made a judgment in the second instance, and the supermarket took the main responsibility. (Correspondent Feng Faxuan Yangzi Evening News/Yangyan reporter Ma Zhiya)
Event playback:
Behind the shutter door is empty, and the man steps on it with one foot.
At 7 o’clock on the evening of October 8, 2017, Zhang, a citizen of Fengxian County, went shopping in a supermarket in the county. Because there were few customers in the supermarket that night, Zhang visited for a while and found that most of the staff were off work. He asked a staff member about the exit, and the other party pointed to the position in front of the second floor.
Zhang quickly went to the corner on the second floor. He saw a shutter door unlocked and mistakenly thought it was the exit. After Zhang opened the shutter door, he stepped out directly. Unexpectedly, the shutter door was empty, and Zhang stepped on the air and fell directly from the second floor. Subsequently, Zhang was first treated by Fengxian People’s Hospital, and was diagnosed as an open fracture of the distal end of the left ulna and radius, a pelvic fracture (upper and lower branches of the left pubic bone), a fracture of the transverse process on the left side of waist 5, multiple fractures of sacrococcygeal vertebrae, and a compression fracture of L2 and L3 vertebral bodies.
After investigation, the place where Zhang fell was actually the loading channel of the supermarket. Behind the shutter door, it is used for the supermarket to lift and load goods. Usually, the shutter door is closed. At the time of the incident, the supermarket loading platform did not stop at the second floor, resulting in a vertical downward hole behind the shutter door.
After more than a month of hospitalization, Zhang spent more than 30,000 yuan on medical expenses. During Zhang’s hospitalization, the person in charge of the supermarket visited, but did not give compensation or pay medical expenses.
Controversy focus:
Customers and supermarkets hold their own words, pointing out that the other party is at fault.
After the condition improved, Zhang found the supermarket to negotiate compensation, but the two sides failed to reach an agreement. As a result, Zhang filed a complaint and took a supermarket to court.
The judge of Fengxian County Court made an investigation on the spot and found that the supermarket checkout counter and the no-shopping passage are located in the northeast of the second floor. Under normal circumstances, customers go to the checkout counter on the second floor after shopping on the third and second floors, and then go down to the first floor along the down elevator connecting the second floor to the first floor, and then go out from the south gate of the lobby on the first floor. The descending elevator on the second floor of the third floor of the supermarket goes south along the road between the shelves. The "exit" sign with white characters on the red background is hung above the southern side of the footwear shelves, but no indication arrow is marked. Not far from the southwest of the exit sign, it is the rolling door at the entrance of the second floor of the supermarket loading platform. After going down the third floor and the second floor, there is no exit direction indication on the ground of the passage between the south shelves.
Zhang and his agent believe that the shutter door at the so-called "freight elevator" position of the defendant’s supermarket was not safely closed and the instructions for the nearby exit were unknown. In the business activities, they failed to fulfill the obligation of safety warning in public places and failed to eliminate potential dangers. There is a causal relationship between his fall and the defendant’s fault behavior, and the defendant’s supermarket should bear all the compensation responsibilities for his losses. The supermarket argued that the normal use of the supermarket export was due to the defendant’s own neglect of observation and the random opening of the shutter door, which led to damage consequences and should bear all the consequences himself.
court decision
In the first trial, the customer took the main responsibility, and in the second trial, the supermarket was sentenced to take the main responsibility.
The court of first instance held that the defendant’s supermarket had no exit route indication on the ground south of the third floor and the second floor, and the hanging word "exit" was not set with an indicating arrow, and it was very close to the shutter door at the entrance of the second floor of the loading platform, which made people who were not familiar with the environment mistakenly think that the shutter door nearby was the exit, and the shutter door at the entrance of the second floor of the loading platform was not locked during the loading time. These were all the fault behaviors of the defendant who failed to fulfill the security obligation. Objectively speaking, the plaintiff stepped out when the shutter door was opened. In addition, it was dark at that time, there was no light outside the shutter door, and it was not observed that it was empty. Many factors were combined to cause the plaintiff to fall and get injured. There is a causal relationship between the defendant’s fault behavior of failing to fulfill the safety guarantee obligation and the plaintiff’s damage consequences, and he should be liable for tort compensation.
Because the plaintiff’s treatment was not completely ended at the time of this lawsuit, he only claimed compensation for the medical expenses incurred during hospitalization in Fengxian People’s Hospital, and reserved the right to file another lawsuit for other losses, which was a manifestation of legally exercising the right to appeal. Because the treatment has not yet ended, it is not clear whether the plaintiff will cause disability to affect normal life and labor after the maximum reasonable and active treatment. Under normal circumstances, the right to physical health has been seriously violated, and the compensation for mental damages will only be paid when the degree of disability is more than five. Therefore, the reason for the plaintiff to claim compensation for mental damages in this lawsuit is not yet established.
To sum up, the defendant, a supermarket, should bear tort liability for the plaintiff’s fall injury and compensate the plaintiff for 40% of the medical expenses. Fengxian People’s Court ruled that a supermarket of the defendant compensated the plaintiff Zhang for medical expenses of 12,742.4 yuan.
After the judgment of the first instance, Zhang refused to accept it and appealed to Xuzhou Intermediate People’s Court. After hearing the case, Xuzhou Intermediate People’s Court held that in this case, a supermarket did not clearly mark the path to leave the supermarket, did not take measures to eliminate the potential safety hazards existing in the loading platform, and did not arrange personnel to guide customers who left the supermarket. A supermarket didn’t fulfill its prudent obligation to protect the safety of the places it could control, so there was a big fault in the damage consequences to Zhang.
Based on the fault degree of a supermarket and Zhang, the court found that it is appropriate for a supermarket to bear 60% of the compensation liability for the damage consequences of Zhang, and Zhang should bear 40% of the responsibility himself. Zhang’s appeal request was partially established, and the court of first instance found out the facts clearly, but found that the proportion of responsibility was improper and should be revised. In the end, Xuzhou Intermediate People’s Court ruled that a supermarket compensated Zhang for medical expenses of 19,113.5 yuan.