Adriana Mendez v. Wal-Mart Stores East, LP ( 2023 )


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  • USCA11 Case: 22-13637    Document: 27-1      Date Filed: 05/22/2023    Page: 1 of 17
    [PUBLISH]
    In the
    United States Court of Appeals
    For the Eleventh Circuit
    ____________________
    No. 22-13637
    Non-Argument Calendar
    ____________________
    ADRIANA MENDEZ,
    Plaintiff-Appellant,
    versus
    WAL-MART STORES EAST, LP,
    Defendant-Appellee.
    ____________________
    Appeal from the United States District Court
    for the Northern District of Georgia
    D.C. Docket No. 1:20-cv-03422-AT
    ____________________
    USCA11 Case: 22-13637      Document: 27-1      Date Filed: 05/22/2023      Page: 2 of 17
    2                       Opinion of the Court                 22-13637
    Before BRANCH, LAGOA, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
    BRANCH, Circuit Judge:
    Adriana Mendez appeals the district court’s order granting
    summary judgment in favor of defendants Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
    and Wal-Mart Stores East, LP, (“Walmart”) in her “slip and fall”
    negligence suit under Georgia law. On appeal, Mendez argues that
    the district court erred in (1) analyzing her slip and fall claim under
    a premises liability theory instead of an active negligence theory,
    and (2) denying her spoilation of evidence claim and related
    sanctions request. After review, we affirm.
    I.     Background
    The events giving rise to this negligence case occurred over
    a nine-minute period on the evening of September 15, 2018, at a
    Walmart in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Specifically, that evening,
    Mendez and her two grandchildren checked out after shopping at
    Walmart and headed to Mendez’s car. When Mendez reached her
    vehicle, she realized that she had been charged twice for the same
    item and walked back into the store to dispute the charge with
    customer service. At 7:52 p.m., while Mendez was waiting for
    assistance at customer service, a Walmart employee, Davanta
    Douglas, conducted a routine walk-through safety inspection of
    the area where Mendez would later slip. He did not see any liquid
    or foreign substance on the floor during that inspection and “the
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    22-13637                   Opinion of the Court                                3
    floor was dry, clean, and free of debris.” Within the next five
    minutes, numerous individuals traversed the same area.
    At 7:57 p.m., while waiting for assistance, Mendez walked a
    few steps away from the customer service area to purchase a
    scratch-off lottery ticket. Less than a minute later, a Walmart
    employee, Andres Valdez, pushed a shopping cart full of bags of
    trash through the front of the store and parked it in front of the
    customer service desk area for less than a minute. 1 While the cart
    with trash was parked near the service desk area, Douglas
    conducted another walk-through inspection, and he did not see any
    liquid on the floor. Nor did he see any liquid trailing from the cart
    with trash in it. A few seconds after Douglas’s walk-through,
    Valdez removed the shopping cart with trash from the area.
    Less than a minute later, Mendez finished up at the lottery
    machine and started walking back to the customer service desk,
    when she slipped and stumbled forward. Two Walmart employees
    who were standing nearby caught her and prevented her from
    falling to the ground.
    Mendez had an unobstructed view of the floor before she
    slipped, and she did not see any trash or liquid on the floor. After
    1 Video footage from the store showed Valdez stumble and fall at one point
    while pushing the cart—in a different area from where Mendez later slipped—
    and he testified during his deposition that he did not remember what caused
    him to fall. However, he also stated that he had fallen “[l]ots of times” at work
    because he was physically disabled and overworked.
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    4                       Opinion of the Court                 22-13637
    she slipped, she saw some liquid on the floor where she had slipped.
    She could not recall the size or color of the liquid but noted that “it
    wasn’t that conspicuous.” Douglas alleged that, after closer
    inspection, he observed a small spot of brown liquid “the size of a
    dime or a nickel,” which was “not in sight” prior to Mendez
    slipping.
    Two days after the incident, pursuant to Walmart’s standard
    protocol when there is an incident on the store’s premises,
    Walmart’s Asset Protection Associate, Folake Olanrewaju,
    preserved 16 hours of video in the form of two-hour clips from
    eight different cameras documenting the area of the incident.
    Meanwhile, four days after the incident, Mendez’s attorneys
    sent a spoliation letter to Walmart, advising it that litigation was
    anticipated and directing Walmart to maintain and preserve
    various information, including video footage from the date of the
    accident.
    Thereafter, Mendez brought a negligence action against
    Walmart in the State Court of Gwinnett County, seeking damages
    for injuries that she suffered from the slip, including injuries to her
    lower back, neck, and right shoulder. In her complaint, she alleged
    that Walmart had a duty to maintain and inspect the store’s
    premises and to ensure that it was free of hazards which could
    cause harm to invitees, including Mendez. She maintained that, on
    September 15, 2018, Walmart “and/or their employees or agents
    for whom [Walmart] [is] vicariously liable” “caused, created
    and/or permitted an unsafe, dangerous and hazardous condition
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    22-13637               Opinion of the Court                        5
    to exist” in the form of “liquid on the floor,” and “failed to
    undertake reasonable inspections of the premises” and eliminate
    the dangerous condition. Mendez alleged that Walmart knew or
    should have known of the dangerous condition, and the dangerous
    condition resulted in her injury. Walmart removed the action to
    federal court based on diversity jurisdiction.
    During discovery, it was revealed that one of the preserved
    video clips covered the wrong time frame. Specifically, while the
    other video clips reflected one hour before and one hour after the
    incident from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m., one clip was from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.,
    prior to the incident. When asked about this discrepancy in the
    footage, Olanrewaju stated in her deposition that it was her
    intention to preserve the footage from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., and
    that she did not know why the wrong footage was saved. She
    explained that, when transferring the footage to a DVD, she had
    synced the same time frame for all eight cameras, and she did not
    know why one “skipped two hours behind.” Olanrewaju never
    reviewed the preserved video footage to make sure that the correct
    footage was preserved, explaining that reviewing the footage after
    transferring it to a DVD was not part of the process.
    Additionally, during discovery, it was revealed that, a few
    days after the accident, Walmart employee Valdez received
    disciplinary action because he “was observed on camera taking the
    trash th[r]ough the store in a buggy [in violation of Walmart’s trash
    collection policy,] and the trash bag was leaking through the store
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    6                         Opinion of the Court                      22-13637
    and caused a customer accident.” 2 Valdez was instructed to use
    the company trash bins designated for collecting trash and to see a
    member of management if he had any questions.3
    Walmart moved for summary judgment, arguing that it was
    entitled to summary judgment because Mendez could not show
    that it had actual or constructive knowledge of the dangerous
    condition. Walmart also argued that Mendez could not establish a
    claim of active negligence based on the alleged leaking trash bags
    because she failed to present a specific act or omission attributable
    to Walmart that constituted active negligence or any admissible
    evidence demonstrating that the bags were in fact leaking or that
    any such leak occurred in the incident area. Mendez opposed
    Walmart’s motion for summary judgment, asserting that a genuine
    issue of fact existed as to whether the “active negligence” of Valdez
    caused her slip and fall (in which case knowledge of the hazard is
    imputed to the employer), or whether Walmart, at a minimum,
    2 The manager who issued the disciplinary action stated he did not know if
    the “customer accident” referred to in Valdez’s file was Mendez’s accident,
    and that he never saw a video of her accident. He also could not recall how
    he came to the conclusion that the trash bags in Valdez’s cart were leaking,
    but he thought that someone may have told him that the trash bags were
    leaking. He also thought that someone may have told him that Mendez’s
    accident was because the trash bags were leaking.
    3 Walmart’s established trash collection policy required employees to use
    designated solid, rolling trash bins to collect trash, not the store’s shopping
    carts. A manager testified that the store did not want the shopping carts used
    to transport trash because “it is not sanitary” and is “a health issue.”
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    22-13637                  Opinion of the Court                             7
    had constructive notice of the hazard. She also argued that
    Walmart had intentionally destroyed video evidence from one of
    the cameras in violation of the spoliation letter, and that the
    destroyed footage “would have shown the closest, detailed
    coverage of the incident itself, [and] exactly what was on the floor.”
    She maintained that, based on Walmart’s conduct, she was entitled
    to an inference that the destroyed footage was adverse to Walmart,
    which would preclude summary judgment. In response, Walmart
    argued, in part, that its post-accident disciplinary actions against
    Valdez were inadmissible subsequent remedial measures.
    The district court granted Walmart’s motion for summary
    judgment. Specifically, citing to other district court decisions, the
    district court concluded that Mendez did not have a claim for active
    negligence because, under Georgia law, a defendant is not liable for
    active negligence where an employee unintentionally causes a spill,
    and Mendez did not allege that Valdez purposely spilled liquid on
    Walmart’s floor.4 Next, the district court concluded that Mendez
    was not entitled to an adverse inference or denial of summary
    judgment based on spoliation of evidence because the preservation
    of the wrong time frame from one of the cameras was
    unintentional and the footage would not have shown the incident
    4 In reaching this conclusion, the district court determined that the finding
    that Valdez caused the spill was not a remedial measure and was admissible.
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    8                          Opinion of the Court                      22-13637
    area. 5 Finally, the district court concluded that Mendez failed to
    show that Walmart had constructive knowledge of the hazard
    because the evidence showed that (1) no one, including Mendez,
    saw the liquid on the floor, and—accepting Mendez’s contention
    that the buggy with trash caused the spill—less than one minute
    elapsed between the spill and Mendez slipping, which left Walmart
    with no time to discover and remove the hazard; and (2) Walmart
    had a reasonable inspection procedure in place that was adequate
    as a matter of law. Mendez timely appealed.
    II.     Discussion
    A. Whether the district court erred in applying the
    premises liability framework to Mendez’s claim
    Mendez argues that the district court erred in analyzing her
    negligence claim under a premises liability theory because the
    evidence established that the liquid hazard on which she slipped
    was caused by the active negligence of Valdez who pushed a
    shopping cart full of leaking trash through the store in violation of
    Walmart’s trash collection policies and procedures.
    5 The district court noted that Mendez relied on the factors identified in Flury
    v. Daimler Chrysler Corp., 
    427 F.3d 939
     (11th Cir. 2005), for her argument that
    spoliation sanctions and an adverse inference were warranted, but that post-
    Flury, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure had been amended to specifically
    address the spoliation of electronically stored information, see Fed. R. Civ. P.
    37(e). The district court highlighted that this Circuit has not addressed
    whether the Flury factors are still applicable in light of Rule 37(e), but
    concluded that regardless Mendez was not entitled to sanctions.
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    22-13637               Opinion of the Court                         9
    “We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de
    novo, view[ing] the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-
    moving party.” Gogel v. Kia Motors Mfg. of Ga., Inc., 
    967 F.3d 1121
    , 1134 (11th Cir. 2020) (en banc) (quotations omitted).
    Summary judgment is proper if the evidence shows “that there is
    no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is
    entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a); see
    also Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 
    475 U.S. 574
    , 587 (1986) (“Where the record taken as a whole could not
    lead a rational trier of fact to find for the non-moving party, there
    is no genuine issue for trial.” (quotations omitted)). We may
    “affirm on any ground supported by the record.” Feliciano v. City
    of Miami Beach, 
    707 F.3d 1244
    , 1252 n.5 (11th Cir. 2013).
    When, as here, federal jurisdiction over the negligence case
    is founded on diversity, state law governs the substantive issues.
    See ML Healthcare Servs., LLC v. Publix Super Mkts., Inc., 
    881 F.3d 1293
    , 1299 (11th Cir. 2018). “[T]he highest court of the state
    is the final arbiter of what is state law. When it has spoken, its
    pronouncement is to be accepted by federal courts as defining state
    law unless it has later given clear and persuasive indication that its
    pronouncement will be modified, limited or restricted.” West v.
    Am. Tel. & Tel. Co., 
    311 U.S. 223
    , 236 (1940). Federal courts sitting
    in diversity must also “follow the decisions of intermediate state
    courts in the absence of convincing evidence that the highest court
    of the state would decide differently.” Stoner v. NY Life Ins. Co.,
    
    311 U.S. 464
    , 467 (1940).
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    10                      Opinion of the Court                 22-13637
    “Georgia law distinguishes between negligence cases where
    a condition on the premises causes injury to someone and those
    where an employee’s active negligence causes injury to someone.”
    Byrom v. Douglas Hosp., Inc., 
    792 S.E.2d 404
    , 408 (Ga. Ct. App.
    2016). For example, in Byrom, the Court of Appeals of Georgia
    concluded that the plaintiff’s case was an active negligence case
    where the plaintiff’s allegations did not “implicate any condition of
    the [hospital] premises itself,” and instead attributed the plaintiff’s
    injuries to the nurse’s inaction in “fail[ing] to raise the foot pedals
    of the wheelchair or otherwise assist [the plaintiff] in exiting the
    wheelchair,” which resulted in the patient’s fall. 
    Id. at 406
    , 408–09.
    Similarly, in Lipham v. Federated Dep’t Stores, Inc., 
    440 S.E.2d 193
    ,
    194–95 (Ga. 1994), the Supreme Court of Georgia held that a
    plaintiff’s claim involved active negligence where the plaintiff
    alleged that she was in a store parking lot watching an event in
    which people were running and playing games, when a store
    employee, who was participating in the event, turned around too
    quickly and unintentionally knocked the plaintiff to the ground. In
    reaching this conclusion, like the Byrom court, the Lipham court
    emphasized that the allegations did “not concern a condition of the
    premises over which [the store] could have exercised some degree
    of control or of which [the store] could have warned.” 
    Id. at 194
    .
    In support of her argument that her case is an instance of
    active negligence, Mendez relies almost exclusively on Bruno’s
    Food Stores, Inc. v. Taylor, 
    491 S.E.2d 881
    , 887 (Ga. Ct. App. 1997).
    According to her, the evidence demonstrates that Valdez created a
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    22-13637                   Opinion of the Court                                11
    hazardous condition on Walmart’s floor by improperly removing
    trash from the premises, and in Bruno’s Food Stores the Court of
    Appeals of Georgia held that “[w]here acts or omissions of the
    owner/occupier work positive injury to others, such acts or
    omissions are active negligence in the classic sense.” 
    Id. at 887
    .
    However, Bruno’s Food Stores is not binding precedent in
    Georgia; it is physical precedent only because the entire panel did
    not concur fully in the opinion.6 See Ga. Ct. App. R. 33.2(a)(2)
    (providing that for decisions issued prior to August 1, 2020, “[i]f an
    appeal was decided by a division of this Court, a published opinion
    in which all three panel judges fully concur is binding precedent.
    An opinion is physical precedent only (citable as persuasive, but not
    binding, authority), however, with respect to any portion of the
    published opinion in which any of the panel judges concur in the
    judgment only, concur specially without a statement of agreement
    with all that is said in the majority opinion, or dissent.”). 7 Indeed,
    6 In fact, two of the members of the three-judge panel specially concurred in
    a separate opinion in which they disagreed with the language on which
    Mendez relies for her argument. Bruno’s Food Stores, 
    491 S.E.2d at 893
    (Birdsong, J., joined by Ruffin, J., specially concurring) (“[T]he majority’s
    active negligence theories and its effort to merge active negligence concepts
    in slip and fall cases are contrary to [Georgia’s] Supreme Court precedent and
    were rejected by this Court [previously].”).
    7 The Court of Appeals of Georgia eliminated the physical precedent rule for
    all opinions issued on or after August 1, 2020. See Ga. R. Ct. App. 33.2(a)(1)
    (“Effective August 1, 2020: If an appeal is decided by a division of this Court or
    by the Court sitting en banc, a published opinion in which a majority of the
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    12                       Opinion of the Court                    22-13637
    the Court of Appeals of Georgia has held unequivocally that, due
    to its status as physical precedent only, Bruno’s Food Stores
    “cannot be used to support an ‘active negligence’ theory in a slip
    and fall case.” Mock v. Kroger Co., 
    598 S.E.2d 789
    , 791 (Ga. Ct.
    App. 2004).
    Similarly, none of the other cases that Mendez cites in
    passing support an active negligence theory in a slip and fall case.
    First, Mendez’s reliance on Johnson v. Kimberly Clark, 
    504 S.E.2d 536
     (Ga. Ct. App. 1998), is misplaced, as the Court of Appeals of
    Georgia has already rejected a similar argument that Johnson
    supported an active negligence theory in a slip and fall case, noting
    that “Johnson is not a slip and fall case and therefore did not alter
    [Georgia’s] well-established law” governing slip and fall cases.
    Mock, 
    598 S.E.2d at 791
    . Second, Greenforest Baptist Church, Inc.
    v. Shropshire, 
    471 S.E.2d 547
     (Ga. Ct. App. 1996), is not a slip and
    fall case and has no application to the governing law in this case.
    Finally, although both Kaplan v. Pulte Home Corp., 
    537 S.E.2d 727
    (Ga. Ct. App. 2000), and BBB Service Co., Inc. v. Glass, 
    491 S.E.2d 870
     (Ga. Ct. App. 1997), involve slip and fall scenarios, they are
    physical precedent only and do not reflect binding Georgia law.
    Furthermore, even though they may be persuasive authority, both
    of those cases are distinguishable from the case at hand because
    they involve scenarios where the employee actively and
    judges fully concur in the rationale and judgment of the decision is binding
    precedent.”).
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    22-13637                 Opinion of the Court                            13
    intentionally placed a liquid hazard on the ground. See Kaplan, 
    537 S.E.2d at 731
     (independent contractor pressure washed four
    driveways in freezing weather without salting or sanding); BBB
    Serv. Co., 491 S.E.2d at 872 (Eldridge, J.) (concluding that improper
    application of degreaser on restaurant floor could support a claim
    of active negligence). Here, even assuming the trash bags were
    leaking, there is no evidence that Valdez was aware of the leak or
    intentionally took any action to place liquid on Walmart’s floor.
    In short, Mendez fails to cite any binding authority under
    Georgia law supporting an active negligence theory in a slip and
    fall case. And the persuasive value of the non-binding cases she
    cites is limited because they have either been rejected by the
    Georgia courts as a basis for active negligence in the slip and fall
    context or are fully distinguishable. More importantly, the
    allegations in her complaint clearly involve a condition of the
    premises. Mendez alleged that she was shopping at Walmart when
    “she slipped and fell from liquid that was on the floor” and that
    Walmart “had a duty to inspect the Premises to discover dangerous
    and hazardous conditions . . . and to either eliminate such . . .
    conditions or to warn its invitees.” Thus, the district court did not
    err in analyzing her claim under the framework of traditional
    premises liability. 8
    8 Mendez did not argue on appeal that, if the premises liability framework
    applied, the district court erred in concluding that her claim failed.
    Accordingly, she abandoned any challenge to the district court’s decision on
    that ground. Sapuppo v. Allstate Floridian Ins. Co., 
    739 F.3d 678
    , 680 (11th
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    14                        Opinion of the Court                      22-13637
    B. Whether the district court erred in denying
    Mendez’s spoilation of evidence claim
    Mendez argues that, after receiving her written request to
    preserve all video evidence, Walmart destroyed critical video
    evidence that would have shown the Walmart employee pushing
    leaking trash bags through the store and the area of the slip and fall.
    She maintains that the district court erred in holding that
    Walmart’s destruction of the video footage was unintentional and
    that an adverse inference from the destruction of the evidence was
    not warranted.
    We review the district court’s decision regarding spoliation
    for an abuse of discretion. ML Healthcare Servs., 
    881 F.3d at 1297
    .
    “Applying that standard, we will only reverse if we find that the
    district court has made a clear error of judgment, or has applied the
    wrong legal standard.” 
    Id.
     (quotations omitted).
    “Spoliation is defined as the destruction of evidence or the
    significant and meaningful alteration of a document or
    instrument.” Tesoriero v. Carnival Corp., 
    965 F.3d 1170
    , 1184
    (11th Cir. 2020) (quotations omitted). “[A] party’s spoliation of
    critical evidence may warrant the imposition of sanctions.” 
    Id.
    (quotations omitted).
    Cir. 2014) (“When an appellant fails to challenge properly on appeal one of the
    grounds on which the district court based its judgment, [s]he is deemed to
    have abandoned any challenge of that ground.”).
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    22-13637                   Opinion of the Court                              15
    In Flury v. Daimler Chrysler Corporation, we held that
    “federal law governs the imposition of spoliation sanctions” in a
    diversity suit, but then noted that federal law does not set forth
    “specific guidelines” to determine when spoliation sanctions are
    warranted. 
    427 F.3d 939
    , 944 (11th Cir. 2005). Accordingly, we
    borrowed a multi-factor test from Georgia spoliation law, which
    we determined was “wholly consistent with federal spoliation
    principles.” 
    Id.
     The factors that courts may consider in
    determining whether sanctions for spoliation of evidence are
    warranted, include: “(1) whether the defendant was prejudiced as
    a result of the destruction of evidence; (2) whether the prejudice
    could be cured; (3) the practical importance of the evidence; [and]
    (4) whether the plaintiff acted in good or bad faith.” 
    Id. at 945
    . 9
    9 As the district court noted, post-Flury, Rule 37 of the Federal Rules of Civil
    Procedure was amended to address the failure of a party to preserve
    electronically stored information. Rule 37 now provides that:
    If electronically stored information that should have been
    preserved in the anticipation or conduct of litigation is lost
    because a party failed to take reasonable steps to preserve it,
    and it cannot be restored or replaced through additional
    discovery, the court:
    (1) upon finding prejudice to another party from loss of the
    information, may order measures no greater than necessary to
    cure the prejudice; or
    (2) only upon finding that the party acted with the intent to
    deprive another party of the information’s use in the litigation
    may:
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    16                        Opinion of the Court                       22-13637
    Importantly, an adverse inference, like that sought by
    Mendez, “is drawn from a party’s failure to preserve evidence only
    when the absence of that evidence is predicated on bad faith.”
    Mann v. Taser Int’l, Inc., 
    588 F.3d 1291
    , 1310 (11th Cir. 2009)
    (quotations omitted). “While this circuit does not require a
    showing of malice in order to find bad faith, mere negligence in
    losing or destroying records is not sufficient to draw an adverse
    inference.” 
    Id.
    Walmart’s asset protection associate Olanrewaju testified
    that she intended to preserve the footage for the time period from
    7:00 to 9:00 p.m. for all of the relevant cameras and that she did not
    know why the wrong footage was saved from one of the cameras.
    And she never reviewed the preserved video footage to make sure
    that the correct footage was preserved. Therefore, the record at
    best shows that mere negligence occurred in the destruction of the
    (A) presume that the lost information was unfavorable
    to the party;
    (B) instruct the jury that it may or must presume the
    information was unfavorable to the party; or
    (C) dismiss the action or enter a default judgment.
    Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(e). As we noted in ML Healthcare Services, we have yet to
    address whether Rule 37(e) supplants the Flury factors when a party seeks
    sanctions based on spoliation of electronically stored information. 
    881 F.3d at 1308
    . And we need not reach that question here because as discussed in this
    opinion, Mendez cannot show prejudice or bad faith; therefore, sanctions are
    not warranted under either standard.
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    22-13637               Opinion of the Court                       17
    video footage from one of the eight cameras, which is not sufficient
    to warrant an adverse inference. 
    Id.
    Furthermore, contrary to Mendez’s contention, having
    reviewed the 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. video footage from the camera in
    question, we conclude that the district court determined correctly
    that Mendez did not suffer any prejudice from the destruction of
    the footage from the time of Mendez’s fall because the camera was
    not positioned such that it would have shown her fall or whether
    the buggy pushed by Valdez was leaking.
    Accordingly, the district court did not abuse its discretion in
    denying Mendez’s spoliation sanctions request.
    III.   Conclusion
    In light of the above, we affirm the district court’s grant of
    summary judgment to Walmart.
    AFFIRMED.