Premises Liability / Dangerous Property Cases
- Playground Safety: Recovered $800,000, after a jury verdict of $700,000, for a young child who suffered a severely broken arm as a result defective playground equipment and negligent supervision at a private school. Through expert testimony Plaintiff proved the playground equipment violated Consumer Product Safety Commission Standards, and other safety standards, for height, surface materials to soften falls, age appropriateness, and regular maintenance.
- Defective Bleachers: Recovered the policy limits of $1,000,000 from a local speedway after claimant fell through the bleachers at a local speedway and suffered extremely serious injuries resulting in paraplegia. While claimant was admittedly intoxicated at the time of the incident, Steven successfully demonstrated the bleachers - built in the early 1960s-so grossly violated current safety standards that the injuries would not have occurred if they had been updated. Current bleacher safety standards must be constructed so that a 4-inch sphere will not fall through. Pursuit of this claim also resulted in the speedway replacing their bleachers and bringing them up to current safety standards.
- Dangerous Walkway: Recovered over $175,000 for a claimant who broke two ankles, one requiring surgery, when she fell as a result of an uneven surface on a walkway leading to a retail store. Any change in height in a walking surface of 2 inches or more must be marked because they constitute a tripping hazard.
- Slick Garage Surface: Recovered over $175,000 for an elderly claimant when he was asked to pull his own car into a work bay at an auto mechanic's business because it was raining and the personnel working there did not want to get wet. When exiting his vehicle to go to the waiting area he slipped and fell on a mixture of water and oil.
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Dangerous Ramp-Steep Cross-Slope: Recovered $167,500 for a claimant who suffered a fractured elbow as a result of a fall from a defectively constructed handicap ramp. The edges of the ramp had a "cross-slope" which exceeded the permissible cross slope allowed by Americans with Disability Act standards.
