A Toyota dealership in Mississippi may find out the hard way that customer safety is important even if they’re not in a car. A court of appeals cleared the way last month for a man’s negligence suit against J. Allen Toyota in Gulfport, Mississippi to move forward. The suit stems from an incident that happened in 2019, Automotive News reports:
On the day of the March 2019 accident, Michael Fox’s wife drove him to J. Allen Toyota in Gulfport for work on his 2016 4Runner. His lawyer, Andrew McCullough, of Ridgeland, said the store performed “multiple repairs over the course of a few days, originally to replace a couple of tires and then due to an airbag recall.
Once at the dealership, Fox’s wife stopped and let him out at the dealer’s entrance in the driveway. There was a grass area on the property and Fox wanted to walk his dog while his 4Runner was being serviced. While walking the dog, Fox fell into an eight foot deep hole. Fox’s injuries were incredibly severe, Auto News says his leg nearly went into his groin. As a result of this and other injuries he sustained in the fall, he had to undergo several surgeries. Of course, the dealership denied any wrongdoing. And they went about it in a messed up way.
The dealership denied liability, arguing Fox was a trespasser when he ventured without permission to a “remote” part of the property about 100 feet beyond the store’s swivel gate, which is kept open during the day. J. Allen Toyota said it didn’t conduct any business or display vehicles in the area where the accident occurred.
Fox and his defense argued that the store never said that customers couldn’t walk in the grass area where he fell, even pointing to the dealer owner’s own testimony that pets are welcome at the dealership. Fox and his team also had an engineer testify that the hole would have been “visible for several months before the accident.” A judge initially ruled in favor of the dealership and dismissed Fox’s suit, but Fox appealed and on September 17, an appeals court ruled that the suit must go trial to determine if the dealership “should have reasonably known about the dangerous condition,” especially considering that there was no sign or rule that customers couldn’t be in the area where Fox fell. Looks as if Fox may get way more than just a recall fix and new tires for his 4Runner.