The Alabama Supreme Court has upheld a $1.7 million verdict for a customer injured by a fall in a Mobile County Dollar General store.
The case goes back to July 9, 2012, when 60-year-old Deborah Revette slipped and fell at Dollar General's store No. 7853 on Three Notch Road. She filed suit later that month and the case subsequently dragged on for four years in Mobile County Circuit Court under Judge Michael A. Youngpeter.
Revette was represented by the Cunningham Bounds firm. Her lawyers said that she had slipped in clear liquid laundry detergent and suffered leg and shoulder fractures that required multiple surgeries and nearly half a million dollars in medical bills. Her lawyers argued that the store bore the blame due to Dolgencorp corporate policy that required insufficient safety inspections.
The case appears to have been highly contentious: The record shows that in March 2014, Youngpeter ordered the parties to attend mediation conducted by Reggie Copeland Jr. Then in April 2015 he ordered another mediation session and requested that both sides be prepared to attend "with a different mindset than the preceding mediation."
That too apparently proved fruitless, and a jury ultimately rendered a verdict awarding $1,725,000 to Revette on Sept. 27, 2016.
Dolgencorp filed notice of appeal in January 2017. On Jan. 12, the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court ruling. The Supreme Court issued no opinion on its decision.
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