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3. If the customer brings an action, based on negligence, against the grocery store, the store's best defense will be that
An eight-year-old child went to the grocery store with her mother. The child pushed the grocery cart while her mother put items into it. The child's mother remained near the child at all times. Another customer in the store noticed the child pushing the cart in a manner that caused the customer no concern. A short time later, the cart the child was pushing struck the customer in the knee, inflicting serious injury.
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D is correct. However, in the facts of this question, the grocery store did not breach that duty. The child was supervised «at all times» by her mother. Even the injured customer did not have any concern about the manner in which the child was behaving. Thus, the store did not act unreasonably — assuming the store even knew the child was pushing the cart — in permitting the child to push the cart under her mother's direct and continuous supervision.
A is incorrect. This answer misstates the law. Customers who enter the business are invitees, and the business owes them a duty of care. That duty would certainly include the business exercising reasonable care as to how its customers used the instruments the store provided (the carts). Thus, this answer choice misstates the law by rejecting, in an overly broad manner, the grocery store's duty as to its invitee-customers.
B is incorrect. As described above, normally there is no affirmative duty to act to control the behavior of third parties. There are several exceptions to this rule, however, and one of them is in the relationship between a business and its customers. Businesses owe their customers a limited duty to protect them from harm, including harm caused by other customers. However, on the facts of this question, the grocery store did not breach that duty because the child posed no unreasonable risk of harm to other customers. The mere fact that harm did result does not establish otherwise.
C is incorrect. This answer does not provide a strong defense. The question is premised on there being some negligence by the store in its opening words («any negligence of the store»), and it then offers that this negligence was not actionable because it was not the proximate cause of the customer's knee injury. That is likely incorrect. Proximate cause turns largely on foreseeability, and it was very foreseeable that the grocery store not stopping even a supervised child from pushing a grocery cart could lead to the child causing harm to someone. It might not be very likely, but it was possible and foreseeable.