Supreme Court overturns ruling in grocery store accident

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The Vermont Supreme Court has reversed a jury verdict in favor of the Hannaford Brothers Company in the case of a woman who slipped on a grape and fell in one of the company’s grocery stores. The Supreme Court says the trial court gave the jury incomplete instructions and endorsed the defendant’s misstatement of the law during its closing argument.

Paulette Malaney had sued Hannaford Brothers in October 2000 after she claimed she slipped on a grape and fell in the store’s produce department and dislocated her elbow earlier that year.

The jury ruled in favor of Hannaford’s following a two-day trial. The Supreme Court’s ruling reverses that decision and the case is being sent back to the lower court.

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