Premises Liability Case Results

San Francisco Trip and Fall Case – 500,000 Settlement

Our dangerous premises, or slip and fall lawyers, fought for and won another great result in a San Francisco trip and fall case. Representing a tenant against his negligent landlord, our premises liability attorney settled this personal injury case, just after it was set for trial, for $500,000. This trip and fall case, filed in San Francisco, California, is particularly interesting since our client, a San Francisco tenant “tripped and fell” over a raised threshold, and into a shower door of untempered glass, in his rented apartment. Broken shards of glass sliced the man’s body, causing lacerations through his side, as well as to his hand and face. He was left with ugly scars, and will need revision surgery.

Despite his owning many identical apartment units, the San Francisco landlord claimed he knew nothing about the danger of untempered glass in a shower door. He also claimed not to understand the dangerous nature of a discrepancy in floor height between the hall and the bathroom. The landlord also kept the client’s rental deposit because he said “the tenant broke his shower door.”

The landlord’s reason for not changing to a cheap and harmless shower curtain? Because his tenants would get too much water on the bathroom floor! This was another case of a defendant valuing profit before people, and our team of attorney made this negligent landlord accountable for his failure to take safety seriously.

Dangerous and Defective Gate-$2,365,000-Brain Damage Settlement

Our premises liability team obtained a settlement in the amount of $2,365,000.00 in San Francisco County on behalf of a woman who suffered traumatic brain damage when a dangerous unstable gate, used as a rear garage door, slipped off its tracks and fell onto her while she was visiting a friend’s condominium garage in San Francisco.

The security video of the accident was shocking evidence that our client had done absolutely nothing to contribute to her own injuries. After investigating the conduct of all of the property owners, the property managers, the developers, the architects, the contractors and the sub-contractors who were involved with this condominium complex, our dangerous property lawyers uncovered evidence that substandard architectural design, inadequate contractor supervision, faulty construction by sub-contractors, and negligent property management all combined to cause the heavy metal gate (400 pounds), being used as the garage door for the property to be unstable and unsafe, and to ultimately fall on our client as she entered the garage, causing her multiple fractures and traumatic brain injury.

Obtaining fair financial compensation for our client was particularly challenging in this case because not a single careless defendant accepted responsibility for their part in contributing to our client’s severe injuries. Essentially, each negligent party pointed their fingers at each other party, and they forced this matter to the proverbial “courthouse steps”. With so many hotly contested issues of insurance coverage, ownership, responsibility, and causation, this case ultimately settled only three days before the date set for trial in San Francisco County Superior Court.

The property designers, builders, owners and managers each carelessly failed to protect visitors and guests from injury to this property, and it took CCW’s dangerous property attorney to make each one of them accountable.