Dae Kwon v. Costco Wholesale Corporation

MEMORANDUM

Dae Kon Kwon appeals the defense verdict in the bench trial of her diversity action for damages incurred in a trip and fall while on the premises of Costco, the defendant.

Kwon, an 83-year-old woman, was injured when she tripped on an 18-footlong chain of flatbed carts while shopping at a Costco warehouse. After the incident, Costco failed to preserve a surveillance videotape that may have recorded the incident. The district court found that Costco’s failure to preserve the videotape constituted spoliation, and granted Kwon’s pretrial motion for an adverse inference against Costco.

The key disputed fact in this controversy was whether the carts were moving or stationary at the time Kwon collided with them. The district court found, after it weighed the evidence and made credibility findings, that the carts were stationary. The court relied on that finding to conclude that a stationary row- of five flatbed carts is not an unreasonable hazard and that Kwon was negligent for failing to see and avoid the carts, which the court determined to be obvious obstructions in her path of travel

Kwon argues that the district court erred by not applying the adverse inference to…