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A slip and fall at Sun-Mart on W. A Street on New Year’s Day 2007 landed a North Platte woman in the hospital with a shattered hip. Diane Derra, the woman who fell, and her husband Larry filed a lawsuit against Nash Finch Company, which owns both North Platte Sun-Mart locations, in June 2008. They blamed Nash Finch for failing to purchase and maintain floors in a way that would make them slip-resistant. On Nov. 19, 2009, the Derra’s added one new defendant to their legal action. The Derras believe that the business who had a contract to maintain Sun-Mart’s floors, BK’s Floor Service, is also responsible, along with Nash Finch and the third party company, FBG Service Corporation, that hired BK’s on Nash Finch’s behalf. According to the amended complaint, Diane Derra was grocery shopping on New Year’s Day 2007 when she slipped on a wet floor in a public section of the store. The complaint alleged, “Nash Finch created and/or otherwise failed to prevent a hazardous and slippery condition of a floor that it knew, or should have known, when wet is a trap for the unwary and unwarned public capable of causing serious injury and/or death to its patrons.” Along with charges that Nash-Finch failed to purchase and maintain a sufficiently slip-resistant floor that were included in the original June 2008 complaint, the new filing stated that BK’s failed to “exercise due care in selecting and using cleansers, polishes, waxes and/or other products that cause the floor to be unreasonably slick and/or slippery when wet.” The new complaint also claimed that the floor service did not apply the products properly and their negligence caused permanent and disabling injuries to Diane Derra. Nash Finch, the amended complaint said, failed to take actione ven though it knew that during the winter months the floors of the store “could become wet from patron spills, outside weather conditions, or self service drink and ice dispensers. The store also should have known that customers, like Derra, would fail to protect themselves from the dangers posed by wet floors, the amended complaint charged. The Derras are seeking damages including $50,000 in medical expenses, which the complaint says will continue to grow, as well as all future medical expenses including nursing home care. Permanent physical disabilities, pain and suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life damages are also sought, according to the document. In their answer to the initial complaint, filed June 30, 2008, Nash Finch stated that Derra’s injuries were the result of her own negligence and denied that any dangerous conditions existed. If a dangerous condition did exist, the answer stated, it was open and obvious and should have been apparent to Derra, who failed to take action to prevent her own injury. Nash Finch actually petitioned in April 2009 to have FGB added as a third party defendant to the lawsuit, as they believed that FGB was responsible for Derra’s injury. FGB’s answer, filed in June 2009, categorically denied blame for Derra’s fall and stipulated that Nash Finch was solely responsible for any incident. Notice was served to Brad Keene, the owner of BK’s, on Nov. 19 according to court documents. No answer has been yet been filed on their behalf.
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