'Grapes Of Wrath' Lawsuit: Shopkeeper Ordered To Pay $175,739 To Customer Who Slipped On Fruit

Customer Who Slipped On 'Mushy Grapes' Wins $175,739 Lawsuit

Here's a warning to shop owners: keep your floors grape-free, or you might wind up paying for it.

That's what happened to west London shop keeper Onkar Singh Gill, who according to The Daily Mail was ordered to pay a sum of about $175,739 (£112,000) when customer Samira Hassan slipped on a few grapes and broke both her wrists.

Hassan says she was wearing "sensible shoes" the day she stopped to look at produce at Gill's shop, The Stall, in the Greenford area of London. After stepping on some "mushy" grapes on the pavement, she fell forward.

The Mirror notes that Hassan won the case last September, but Gill appealed saying he had taken all precautions possible, including sweeping the area up to five times a day. The chief judge has rejected that bid.

The incident, which occurred in 2005, led to a seven-year legal battled dubbed the "Grapes of Wrath." Gill has defended his shop and called Hassan's fall a "freak accident," saying that there wasn't anything he could have done.

"Grapes of Wrath" now joins the ranks of other food-related lawsuits, which include several instances of people suing McDonald's over hot coffee and an unsuccessful suit against Taco Bell over its beef-to-filling ratio.

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