Fourth District Considers Sinno Slip-and-Fall Appeal Against Walmart, Employee

The Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal filed a published opinion on March 5, 2026 in Ronald Sinno v. Walmart Stores East, LP and William Bales (No. 4D2024‑1752), and the court’s published opinion affirms (per curiam) the lower court’s disposition. The appellate docket lists the case as 4D2024‑1752 and the opinion appears on the Fourth District docket after an oral-argument listing earlier this year.

The underlying suit centers on a May 18, 2020 incident at Walmart’s store on U.S. Route 1 in Sebastian, Florida. The plaintiff, described in filings as a 58-year-old male and lawful business invitee, alleged that he “suffered serious injuries, including lumbar disc injuries that required surgery, when he slipped and fell on a liquid substance at the defendants retail store. The defendant denied that any condition in the store caused the plaintiffs fall.” Those factual allegations appear in the Indian River County court record entries summarized in the vLex metadata.

The case was filed in Indian River County under docket number 2021-CA-159. vLex metadata records a county decision date of May 31, 2024 and a published county-entry date of September 10, 2024; the county judge listed in those materials is Cynthia Cox. The nature of the county-level disposition that was appealed is not specified in the publicly available snippets, and the Fourth District opinion states only that it affirms the lower court’s disposition without reproducing the county ruling in the excerpts provided.

The Fourth District scheduled the case for oral argument on February 24, 2026 at 10:00 A.M., with 15 minutes per side, before a panel led by Presiding Judge Robert M. Gross and joined by Judges Cory J. Ciklin and Johnathan D. Lott. The court’s oral-argument calendar entry lists the case line as: “2024-1752 Ronald Sinno Morgan & Morgan Jacksonville v. Walmart Stores East Cole, Scott & Kissane, P.A. William Bales Orlando.” That calendar notation shows Morgan & Morgan identified with a Jacksonville office on the appellate schedule, while county-level metadata lists plaintiff counsel as Katherine Rodriguez River of Morgan & Morgan in Orlando.

Defense counsel is identified in county metadata as Katrina Alexa Fernandez of Cole, Scott & Kissane in Miami, while the appellate calendar lists the defense firm as Cole, Scott & Kissane, P.A. William Bales is named as a defendant alongside Walmart Stores East, LP in all entries, but the supplied records do not state Bales’s capacity or role at the store.

The Fourth District’s March 5, 2026 filing resolves the appeal in the appellate docket for No. 4D2024‑1752 by affirming the lower-court disposition. The full text of the Fourth District opinion is filed with the court and is available as a PDF on the district court docket for review; the publicly available snippets do not disclose the appellate court’s legal reasoning or the precise county ruling that was affirmed.