Wilma Williams v. Kfc National Management Company

This case presents a simple fact pattern' — a slip-and-fall on a sidewalk outside a restaurant — but implicates complex, and longstanding, issues concerning circumstantial evidence. With that in mind, while I readily concur in the opinion of the Court, I write separately to provide some analysis on the key substantive question underlying this appeal: What does the law of torts tell us about the amount and type of circumstantial evidence that plaintiffs must adduce, in different circumstances, in order to reach a jury?

I

A review of the doctrine reveals three (closely related) areas in which…