Caryl Rosen v. Community Healthcare System d/b/a Community Hospital

── Caryl Rosen v. Community Healthcare System d/b/a Community Hospital ── Case No.: 25S-CT-00217 Court: Indiana Supreme Court Date: March 11, 2026 Author: Derek Molter Category: General IN THE Indiana Supreme Court Supreme Court Case No. 25S-CT-217 FILED Mar 11 2026, 11:29 am Caryl Rosen, CLERK Appellant/Plaintiff, Indiana Supreme Court Court of Appeals and Tax Court –v– Community Healthcare System d/b/a Community Hospital, Appellee/Defendant. Argued: November 5, 2025 | Decided: March 11, 2026 Appeal from the Lake Superior Court No. 45D10-2102-CT-122 The Honorable Rehana R. Adat-Lopez, Judge On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals No. 24A-CT-1463 Opinion by Justice Molter Chief Justice Rush and Justices Massa and Slaughter concur. Justice Goff dissents with separate opinion. Molter, Justice. Caryl Rosen sued Community Hospital alleging that its disheveled entryway mat caused her to trip and fall as she was leaving through the hospital’s main entrance doors. A jury decided the hospital wasn’t liable, but Rosen believes her trial was unfair, so she appealed. Her appeal focuses on the hospital’s failure to preserve video footage she thinks might have helped prove her case. That is, she claims the hospital spoliated evidence. The hospital’s security supervisor swore in an affidavit that only one camera captured Rosen’s fall, so he preserved a couple minutes of that video, from the moment she entered the frame until she got up and left. He also swore there were two other cameras in the area, but they didn’t capture the fall, so he didn’t save that footage. Rosen argues that not saving more video from the camera that captured the fall and not saving any video from the other two cameras was evidence spoliation. The trial court credited the hospital’s evidence that none of the unpreserved footage captured her fall. But Rosen argues the footage from the surrounding area still might have shown the mat was disheveled before she fell or led to the discovery of other evidence about the mat’s condition. After considering Rosen’s and the hospital’s versions of events, the trial judge disagreed, concluding the hospital didn’t spoliate evidence. Rosen argues that conclusion was an abuse of discretion. And that initial decision, she contends, led the judge to further abuse her discretion by: (1) denying Rosen’s request to instruct the jury that it could infer from the hospital’s failure to save more video that the additional footage would have been unfavorable to the hospital; and (2) sustaining the hospital’s objections to evidence that the hospital didn’t preserve more video. Because we conclude these were reasonable judgment calls within the trial judge’s discretion, we affirm. Facts and Procedural History While Caryl Rosen’s husband was being discharged from Community Hospital in Munster, she walked ahead to retrieve her car so she could Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 25S-CT-217 | March 11, 2026 Page 2 of 17 pick him up near the hospital’s main entrance. Just inside the main entrance was a large, commercial grade floormat that Rosen tripped over as she approached the door. She says her “right foot got stuck under that rug,” and because her “momentum was still going forward and [she] couldn’t stop [herself],” she fell, and “[her] face smashed into the ground.” Tr. Vol. 2 at 235. Before she fell, she didn’t notice “any part of the rug or mat to be lifted,” nor did she see any other defect in the mat. Tr. Vol. 3 at 20. But when she sat up after falling, she says she “could see the rug that was pulled up and where [her] foot had gotten stuck