Jury Awards $400,000 After Shopper's Fall at Tucson Safeway

Lydia Lopez was entering a Safeway store in Tucson when she slipped and fell, sustaining injuries that generated nearly $60,000 in medical charges. She retained Louis Hollingsworth and Richard Arrotta of Hollingsworth Law Firm, along with co-counsel Thomas A. Zlaket, to bring a negligence claim against the grocery chain.

At trial in Pima County Superior Court, the jury found Safeway 90% at fault for the conditions that caused Lopez's fall. It assessed Lopez's damages at $400,000 and assigned her 10% comparative fault, reducing the net award to $360,000.

Safeway appealed, but not on the core liability findings. Its challenge centered on the damages calculation: the jury had awarded Lopez the full amount her medical providers billed ($59,699.57), while Safeway argued recovery should be capped at what her insurer actually paid after negotiated write-downs ($16,837). The difference, roughly $42,800, had been written off by the providers as contractual adjustments.

The Arizona Court of Appeals, Division 2, affirmed the verdict on February 28, 2006. The court applied the collateral source rule, holding that a tortfeasor cannot benefit from the plaintiff's insurance arrangements or the rate reductions her insurer negotiated with providers. Lopez was entitled to recover the full billed amount, not the discounted figure Safeway's insurer sought to substitute.

The decision left the $360,000 net award intact. The case, reported at 212 Ariz. 198, 129 P.3d 487 (App. 2006), is cited in Arizona courts for the collateral source rule's application to negotiated medical-billing write-offs.