Holding Businesses Accountable for Customer Safety

On December 13, 2009, then 57-year-old Jane Doe was visiting a large retail store in San Bruno with her granddaughter.  Though an outside area of the store was covered overhead, the floor was still flooded due to recent rain, improper sloping of the floor, and poor drainage.  Ms. Doe slipped and fell in that outside area due to the flooded flooring, and shattered her left knee cap.  Ms. Doe would need two surgeries on the knee cap and will likely suffer from post-traumatic arthritis in the knee.

Though the floor was obviously wet, Seth Rosenberg of our Personal Injury practice was still able to obtain a $110,000 settlement for Ms. Doe.  Seth obtained prior incident reports showing prior slip and falls in the same area.  He was also able to track down a witness who testified that not only did she see Ms. Doe slip and fall, but she, herself, slipped on the wet floor and almost fell minutes before Ms. Doe.  In fact, the witness testified that a store employee saw the witness slip in the same area as Ms. Doe just minutes before Ms. Doe slipped and fell, and did nothing.

Finally, Seth established that the store had previously placed non-slip tape on the floor in the outside area, but allowed it to rub away to nothingness over time and never replaced it.

In his time at Minami Tamaki, Seth has obtained numerous six-figure settlements in notoriously difficult slip-and-fall and trip-and-fall cases.  In these cases, Seth obtains significant evidence showing businesses not heeding warnings about the dangers of its premises, not following internal safety rules, and/or simply not caring about their customers’ safety.

 

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