Linda Plunk v. National Health Investors

This appeal involves a nursing home visitor who injured herself by stepping into a grassy depression in the building's landscaping. The visitor and her husband filed suit in the Circuit Court for Lawrence County alleging that the nursing home's owner had failed to maintain the premises in a reasonably safe condition. A jury apportioned sixty percent of the fault to the nursing home and forty percent to the visitor and awarded the visitor $40,000 for medical expenses and permanent impairment. Both parties filed post-trial motions after the trial court entered a $24,000 judgment for the visitor. The visitor and her husband sought a new trial or an additur because the jury had not awarded damages for pain and suffering. The nursing home filed a Tenn. R. Civ. P. 50.02 motion for a judgment in accordance with its motion for a directed verdict. The trial court denied the nursing home's motion and suggested a $5,000 additur. The nursing home accepted the additur, and both parties appealed. The visitor asserts that the trial court erred by failing to grant a new trial, and the nursing home asserts that the trial court erred by denying its Tenn. R. Civ. P. 50.02 motion. We have determined that the trial court erred by denying the nursing home's Tenn. R. Civ. P. 50.02 motion because it was not reasonably foreseeable that visitors would be walking on the grassy area where the plaintiff fell. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment.