## Facts

- Willard Joye shopped at a self-service supermarket operated by The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P) in Winnsboro, South Carolina.
- After passing a banana display and walking through the store toward the meat counters, Joye stepped on a banana (or banana peel), fell, and injured his back.
- There was no evidence A&P employees placed the banana on the floor or that A&P had actual notice of it before the fall.
- The banana was described as dark brown, sticky around the edges, and bearing dirt and sand; dirt was also observed near the banana on the floor.
- Evidence suggested the area may not have been swept for up to 35 minutes before the incident.
- A jury awarded Joye $10,000; the district court denied A&P’s Rule 50(b) motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict; A&P appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether circumstantial evidence about the banana’s condition and store-cleaning intervals was sufficient to permit a reasonable inference that A&P had constructive notice of the hazard under South Carolina law.
2. Whether, absent proof of creation or actual notice, the case should have been removed from the jury and resolved for A&P as a matter of law.

## Decision

- The Fourth Circuit reversed the judgment for Joye.
- The court held the evidence was legally insufficient to show constructive notice of the banana on the floor.
- The court directed entry of judgment notwithstanding the verdict for A&P.

## Legal Principles

- A storekeeper is not an insurer of customer safety; it owes a duty of ordinary care to maintain aisles and passageways in a reasonably safe condition.
- When a foreign substance is on the floor and the store did not create the condition, the plaintiff must prove the store had actual or constructive notice and failed to remove the hazard within a reasonable time.
- Constructive notice requires evidence permitting a non-speculative inference that the hazard existed long enough that the store should have discovered and remedied it.
- Ambiguous circumstantial evidence about the substance’s appearance, without evidence of duration, does not establish constructive notice; general cleaning practices alone do not fill that gap.

## Conclusion

Because the record provided no reliable basis to infer how long the banana was on the floor, the jury would have had to speculate about constructive notice; under South Carolina premises-liability law, that evidentiary failure required judgment for the store.


Joye v. Great Atl. & Pac. Tea Co., 405 F.2d 464 (4th Cir. 1968)