Plaintiff's minor son, aged five years, suffered injuries on the premises of Defendant toy store on Dec. 23, 2000. On that date, Plaintiff brought her two children to the Defendant's store for Christmas shopping. Defendant's store is organized into departments covering three floors of a building. Each department was staffed with three cashiers. The entrance to the store was also staffed with security guards.
The store featured various displays, including one depicting character Buzz Light Year in a rocket. The display would fly overhead and call out, "To Infinity and Beyond!" every ten seconds. Plaintiff's son (Dustin) asked to see the display, and Plaintiff took her son to the third floor of the store.
Plaintiff instructed Dustin to remain at the Buzz Light Year display while she shopped in a different department on that same floor. She glanced over at him five minutes later and saw him standing where she'd left him, as she'd instructed. Plaintiff then became distracted when her other child suddenly threw a tantrum in another aisle.
Three feet behind the Buzz Light Year display was a lit supply room whose door had been left slightly ajar. The door displayed a "Do Not Enter" sign. During the time that Plaintiff attended to her second child's tantrum, Dustin entered the room to discover that several more Buzz Light Year toys like the display model were suspended from the ceiling of that room. He located a step stool, climbed onto it, and jumped to try to reach one of the suspended toys. He fell and sustained bodily injury.
Whether based on the facts presented above, Plaintiff has a viable claim on behalf of her minor son on the theory of attractive nuisance. (Not addressed in this memorandum are issues of negligence, comparative negligence, contributory negligence or damages.)
No. The facts presented above do not meet the criteria for the attractive nuisance doctrine. The condition upon the premises was not o...