In the early afternoon of Dec. 20, 2008, plaintiff Verla Castaneda, a self-employed 49 year old, was shopping at Westminster Mall in Westminster. Castaneda claimed that when she stepped off an escalator to the second floor, she took several steps forward and her right foot slipped on something on the floor and slid forward several feet. She claimed that this caused her to lose her balance and fall onto her left knee and tailbone in a very awkward fashion. Castaneda further claimed that after lying on the floor in pain for some time, she rotated her body and observed an oval-shaped white blob about 6 to 8 inches in diameter on the ground behind her. Castaneda sued the property owner, The Retail Property Trust; the entity that eventually acquired The Retail Property Trust; and the cleaning contractor that was responsible for cleaning and inspecting the premises, Varsity Contractors Inc. She alleged that Simon Property had a non-delegable duty to maintain the property in a reasonably safe condition, such that it was responsible for any negligence on the part of its cleaning contractor, Varsity Contractors. Castaneda testified at her deposition that the blob she saw on the floor had a streak the width of her right foot running through the middle of it, but that the sides of the blob remained firm and set. She also testified that she reached back to touch the blob and found that the edges of the substance were firm, dried and congealed, which she claimed seemed to indicate that the substance had been on the floor for quite some time. However, she claimed that in the middle of the blob, where her foot had passed through it, the white substance was still soft and creamy. Castaneda testified that she then inspected her right shoe and saw that the white substance was on the bottom of her right shoe as well. She alleged that she also smelled the bottom of her shoe and determined that it smelled like vanilla. Thus, Castaneda testified that she reasoned that the blob most likely was vanilla ice cream or yogurt that had fallen onto the floor of the mall and been left there for quite some time so that the sides and edges were able to dry and congeal. She testified that after her fall, she went to the first floor phone kiosk to contact mall security and, after their arrival, gave a report regarding her fall and the she sustained. However, Castaneda took no photos or other documentation of the blob on the floor that she believed caused her fall. As a result, there was no evidence regarding the substance that caused her fall or the length of time it had been on the floor of the mall, other than Castaneda’s own testimony. Castaneda’s counsel noted that during discovery, Varsity Contractors was unable to locate and produce any sweep sheets/cleaning logs regarding any part of the mall on the date of the incident. Counsel also noted that the most knowledgeable person produced by Varsity Contractors regarding the cleaning of the portion of the mall where Castaneda fell on the date of the incident was unable to provide any testimony regarding when that portion of the mall was last cleaned or inspected before Castaneda’s fall. Thus, plaintiff’s counsel contended that Castaneda was entitled to an inference that reasonable inspections were not conducted by the defendants, pursuant to Ortega v. Kmart Corp. (2001) 26 Cal. 4th 1200. Mall security testified that, after completing the incident report with Castaneda, they went to the second floor of the mall to the location where Castaneda said she fell, but were unable to find any evidence of the substance that Castaneda described slipping on. Thus, defense counsel disputed that Castaneda had slipped on anything at all based on the lack of evidence regarding the cause of Castaneda’s alleged fall. In addition, defense counsel asserted that Simon Property and Varsity Contractors did not have actual or constructive notice of the alleged substance because it was not on the floor for a sufficient amount of time for it to have been discovered., Castaneda claimed she instantly felt pain shoot through several parts of her body, including her knees, ankles and tailbone, upon her fall. She alleged that she had a prior history of ankle and immediately became concerned that she had re-injured her ankle such that she called her podiatrist after leaving the scene of the fall and made the first available appointment with her podiatrist. Castaneda sustained an Achilles tendon tear of her left ankle, requiring two left ankle joint ligament repair surgeries and months of using a CAM walker boot. She also sustained an Achilles tendon tear and sural neuritis with entrapment of her right ankle, requiring four right ankle joint repair surgeries, a surgical repair of the peroneus brevis tendon, a right sural neurectomy and years of using a CAM walker boot. Castaneda also sustained a tailbone fracture that required a coccygectomy, which is the surgical removal of the coccyx, a caudal epidural steroid block and an S5 selective nerve root injection under fluoroscopy. In addition, Castaneda claimed lower back pain caused by a 4-millimeter lumbar disc protrusion at the L5-S1 level, abutting the S1 nerves in the subarticular recess, and a 2- to 3-millimeter lumbar disc bulge at the L4-5 level, as well as related lumbar radiculopathy, all requiring three bilateral S1 selective nerve root epidural steroid injections under fluoroscopy. She further claimed left knee pain caused by a strain of the medial collateral ligament with probable internal derangement, which she claimed would eventually require arthroscopic surgery to repair the internal derangement. As a result of her , Castaneda claimed that her feet, bilaterally, suffered from complex regional pain syndrome, also known as reflex sympathetic dystrophy or causalgia, a chronic pain condition. She alleged that as a result, she suffered ongoing, shooting pain, numbness and tingling in each foot, ankle and leg. Thus, she claimed that her past medical specials amounted to $127,054.59 (Howell amount). Plaintiff’s counsel noted that the defense’s medical examiner indicated in his DME report that all of the claimed by Castaneda were likely related to the subject fall and also recommended that Castaneda undergo a left knee arthroscopy. As a result, plaintiff’s counsel listed this expert as a treating physician that they intended to call at trial in support of Castaneda’s contentions.