Government/Municipal Liability

The plaintiff, a housing authority tenant, claimed that a crack in the sidewalk caused her wheelchair to tip over and that her resulting injuries included fractures and the dislocation of two fingers. The plaintiff had lived in the apartment with no complaint for three months before the injury, and the former tenant was also wheelchair bound and made no complaints. We argued that the housing authority was not negligent and that no dangerous or defective condition existed at the time of the accident. Further, we contended that the authority acted reasonably in the maintenance of its property. The housing authority demonstrated that it made daily, monthly and annual inspections. The jury returned a finding that the authority was not negligent.

In this highly emotional sexual assault claim against an Aquatics Director/Swim Coach who was a prominent local figure in community, school department, and town, we represented the defendant municipalities. The plaintiff claimed the defendant school and town were both negligent in failing to supervise the defendant, who was accused of sexually assaulting a student while on town property. Despite the sensitive nature of the case, we focused our efforts in drafting a well-researched motion for summary judgment, arguing in part that the defendant was not employed directly by the Town at the time of the incidents. Plaintiff counsel vigorously opposed our motion and the matter was argued several times in front of the presiding judge. As a direct result of our arguments and research, the judge ultimately allowed our motion and dismissed the case against the defendant municipalities.

The plaintiff, a disabled man on crutches, alleged that he was injured when repeatedly struck and “pinned” by a closing elevator door in a town building, sustaining injuries to his neck, shoulders, back, left arm, knees, hip and leg. He further alleged that he developed a blood-borne infection and/or sepsis of the damaged disc. The plaintiff alleged that the elevator door malfunctioned and should have been equipped with a sensor or “electric eye.”

The plaintiff’s counsel named a witness to testify as to the pressure of the door and its impact on the plaintiff, but we moved successfully to have the witness barred from testifying. Before trial we also filed thirteen motions to preclude the plaintiff’s medical expert, Dr. Johns. We argued that Dr. Johns’ opinion was inadmissible pursuant to Daubert and, more importantly, that Dr. Johns’ written report had actually been authored by plaintiff counsel. Ironically, the court denied this motion. However, following plaintiff’s opening argument, the defendants filed a motion for a directed verdict on the grounds that the plaintiff had failed to allege that any defective condition existed with the subject elevator. Although the judge gave plaintiff’s counsel additional time to make said argument, plaintiff counsel failed to do so. The judge allowed the motion for a directed verdict at the close of opening statement.

The plaintiff, a 5-year old girl, fell through a screen in a third-floor apartment window in a building owned by the defendant, a housing authority. She had heard fire engines and wanted to get a closer look. According to the mother’s deposition testimony, the minor plaintiff unlatched and raised the window and then leaned against the window screen to look outside. The screen gave way and the child fell three stories, sustaining a closed head injury, facial abrasions and fractures, right open radial and ulna fractures, and broken teeth.

We argued that the authority had not been negligent in repairing or maintaining the window and had responded appropriately to the plaintiff’s previous requests to secure the screens. We unsuccessfully moved for a directed verdict on the grounds that the authority had no duty to provide a childproof window screen and that an unsecured window screen was the cause of the accident. The plaintiff was also permitted to introduce evidence of subsequent repairs to the screen the day after the accident.

Nonetheless, the jury found in favor of the defendant after deliberating one-and-a-half hours.

The plaintiff allegedly sustained personal injuries as the result of a slip and fall on snow and ice in a housing authority parking lot. The plaintiff, a tenant, brought claims of negligence and breach of contract, claiming that she injured her back and neck and suffered severe headaches. Discovery revealed the plaintiff had a long history of prior back ailments and injuries dating back to the 1960’s. Also, the plaintiff's records reflected subsequent injuries, including a fall from a ladder and a fall down stairs while intoxicated. At trial, the plaintiff testified about her prior history of back problems but claimed that the underlying accident required new and different treatment in the form of facet block injections, which she claimed that she had never undergone before the accident. On cross-examination, the plaintiff was confronted with medical documentation that contradicted this claim, and she admitted that she underwent facet block injections prior to the accident. We also focused on the reasonableness of the housing authority's action. The executive director testified about the authority’s general maintenance procedures and snow plan. Work orders were introduced to show that snow removal operations were undertaken a few days before the accident. Finally, we elicited from the plaintiff that the parking lot was cleared following the prior snow fall and that she did not have any difficulty walking to her assigned parking spot earlier that day. After deliberating for one hour, the jury returned a defense verdict on both counts.

The plaintiff alleged that she fractured her wrist when she slipped and fell on snow and ice while walking on an exterior walkway at a housing authority. She also alleged that a pitch in the pavement and/or cracks in the sidewalk caused puddling, which resulted in an unnatural accumulation of snow and ice.

Using the testimony of the plaintiff and certified weather records, we filed a motion for summary judgment and asserted that not only was the snow and ice a natural accumulation caused by melting and re-freezing, but that the defendant was not negligent in its maintenance of the exterior walkway. The judge allowed the motion, stating that although the accumulation of snow and ice was not a “natural accumulation” by definition, the plaintiff failed to prove that the defendant knew or should have known of any danger allegedly created by the accumulation of snow and ice.