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The Kroger Co. v. Williams

Plaintiffs' knowledge that milk often fell from pallets while being unloaded from trucks at defendant's store precluded his recovery for injuries he sustained while assisting a store employee with the unloading process.

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Jerome Williams was a truck driver who delivered dairy products to Kroger grocery stores. As Williams was assisting a Kroger employee unload a pallet of milk crates from his truck, the crates fell on Williams. He and his wife brought this action against The Kroger Company to recover for his personal injuries and her loss of consortium. They charge the Kroger employee with negligence in using a pallet jack to unload the milk, and they charge Kroger with negligence in inadequately training and supervising the employee in use of the equipment. In reliance on the doctrine of assumption of risk, Kroger moved for summary judgment. The trial court denied the motion. We granted Kroger’s application for interlocutory appeal. Because the evidence demonstrates that Williams indisputably assumed the risk of his injuries, we reverse.

Williams had been employed by Howard Baer, Inc. as a truck driver for over a year. Three or four times each week, he delivered dairy products to Kroger stores throughout Georgia. Each store’s delivery usually consisted of four or five pallets stacked with crates of milk or other dairy products. One pallet generally held 56 crates, stacked six to seven crates high, with each crate holding four gallons of milk. A fully stacked pallet was approximately 5’8″ or 5’9″ high, which was about level with Williams’s forehead. A fully loaded pallet weighed from 300 to 400 pounds.

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