McCarty v. Menard, Inc.

McCarty and Parks went to an Illinois Menard’s store to purchase sheets of oriented strand board (OSB). They drove a pickup truck to the store’s lumber shed and found the OSB piles, stacked side-by-side, behind display signs. The display sign at issue was knee high with protruding wooden legs. McCarty moved some top boards from a central OSB pile over to a right side adjacent pile while searching for undamaged boards. Parks did the same on the left side. After McCarty moved a few boards, he tripped over a piece of wood that was part of the display sign in front of the right‐hand pile. The display sign was normally set flush against the stacks, as were the other signs. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of McCarty’s injury suit. The open and obvious doctrine applies when “[t]he open and obvious nature of the condition itself gives caution and therefore the risk of harm is considered slight; people are expected to appreciate and avoid obvious risks.” The only reasonable conclusion is that McCarty saw the protruding sign while standing in front of it. A reasonable person with McCarty’s knowledge of the situation would have appreciated and avoided the hazardous condition. View "McCarty v. Menard, Inc." on Justia Law