In this day and age of modern surveillance, it amazes me how people try to get away with stuff and then try to sue the heck out of someone. It's people, like the lady in this story, who should get some serious jail time for this type of crap. In Sunrise, Florida, a woman is accused of trying to run a 'slip and fall' scam at a grocery store. Images captured by a surveillance camera inside the store show the woman lose her footing in one of the aisles and take a nasty fall. A store worker comes to her aid and helps her up. The woman then loses her footing again and falls to the floor.
But store manager Luis Diaz noted there was something strange about the 'accident' after viewing the tape."When she's falling, she's not falling backward, she's falling forward," said Diaz, "usually when it's a slip and fall, you tend to fall backward." Diaz decided to do a little investigating on his own and rewound the surveillance tape back even more, and what he found surprised him.
On the tape, the same woman, in the same aisle, minutes before her 'slip and fall' accident. On the tape, the woman appears to be trying to open a bottle of olive oil unsuccessfully. The woman puts it back on the shelf, leaves the aisle only to return a few moments later and pick up a new bottle. The tape shows her opening this bottle and pouring some of the oil onto the floor, then she puts the bottle back on the shelf and leaves the aisle.
Minutes later, she returns to aisle and 'slips' on the oil. "It's not about getting even, it's about her getting things right," said Diaz, "because she's going to try to sue me, sue the store for whatever happened, so I have to make sure everybody knows this is a fraud." Diaz has found the bottle she used to make the spill and is keeping it safe. He also said he's glad that he spent more than $30,000 to install a new sophisticated surveillance system in the store. "At the end of the day it paid for itself," said Diaz, "because of things like this. If you don't have a system that records everything, you lose money.
I can't even begin to figure out what the heck was going through this woman's mind. I'm sure she was looking for the easy cash but now I hope she's looking at some hard time. And I have a strong feeling she's got a good idea about those surveillance video cameras that seem to be everywhere...solving ridiculous litigation cases such as this. Maybe while she's sitting her oily butt in jail she should write a book about her exploits.And the first line of that book should say..."I'm an idiot. I didn't even know there was a video camera." Hellllloooooo?
