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Lewis v. B&R;Corp.9/7/2001
AFFIRMING
Theresa Gail Lewis, Administratrix of the estate of Brenda Carol Helton, and Don Helton (hereinafter collectively referred to as "Lewis") appeal from a summary judgment granted to B&R;Corporation, d/b/a Save-A-Lot, on their complaint for wrongful death involving the death of Brenda Carol Helton in a one-car vehicular accident. We affirm.
On the afternoon of June 4, 1998, Brenda Helton went alone to a Save-A-Lot grocery store in Harlan, Kentucky. She parked her 1988 Ford Mustang on the front row, perpendicular to the front entrance of the store in a parking area designated for handicapped patrons. To the rear of her vehicle was the rest of a 20-foot parking area and a 38-foot grass embankment with an 18% grade that was parallel to Industrial Park Drive. After completing her shopping, Brenda Helton got into her vehicle and started the engine. Shortly thereafter, she placed the transmission in reverse and the vehicle suddenly accelerated at a high rate of speed. The car crossed the parking area, the grass embankment, Industrial Park Road, another level 35-foot grass embankment, and a short five-foot drop-off into the Cumberland River, where it landed on its roof, upside-down in the river. Brenda Helton was rescued by several witnesses and a city police officer. She was taken to the local hospital in a coma, but died the next day after being transferred to a regional hospital in Knoxville, Tennessee, without having regained consciousness.
Kentucky State Police Officers Kenneth Crider and Michael Cornett were called to the scene and conducted an investigation. Officer Crider took photographs of the scene and prepared an accident report after speaking with several witnesses and Helton's family. Officer Cornett, who had training in accident reconstruction, prepared a diagram of the area with corresponding distance measurements indicating the path of the vehicle. Officer Crider learned that Brenda Helton was suffering from Huntington's disease or chorea, a muscular, neurological condition, and that complaints had been filed with the Department of Human Resources about her driving ability. One witness stated that the car's wheels were spinning just before it started moving in reverse at a high rate of speed.
On June 2, 1999, Theresa Lewis, Brenda Helton's daughter and administratrix of her estate, and Don Helton, Brenda Helton's husband, filed a wrongful death complaint against B&R;Corporation, d/b/a Save-A-Lot, and Ford Motor Company. In the complaint, the appellants alleged B&R;breached several duties it owed Brenda Helton related to her status as a handicapped person. They further alleged that as a proximate result of B&R;s failure to comply with its duties, Brenda Helton had been fatally injured. The complaint listed the following duties owed by B&R;to its handicapped patrons:
(a) To comply with all provisions of the Kentucky Revised Statutes regarding handicap persons and persons with physical disabilities.
(b) To reasonably protect patrons from unreasonable risks of harm while engaged in reasonably foreseeable activities.
(c) To provide its handicap business patrons with reasonably safe premises for the use of the patrons.
(d) To discover dangerous conditions that create an unreasonable risk of harm to handicap patrons and to correct or otherwise eliminate risk of harm to them.
(e) To maintain the premises in such a condition so that a patron will not be exposed to an unreasonable risks of harm.
(f) To provide safe guards and preventive measures to protect handicap patrons with physical disabilities from an unreasonable risk of harm.
Page 1 2 3 4 5 Kentucky Personal Injury Attorneys
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