In a verdict returned on May 3, 2012, RRD Partner Rob Laney won a defense verdict on behalf of a large retail store in connection with a trip and fall accident that the plaintiff claimed caused her to undergo a total knee replacement. The plaintiff fell over a hand truck that she alleged had been pushed up underneath a rack of hanging clothes, thereby preventing her from seeing it. According to the lawsuit, the incident caused her to incur more than $100,000 in medical expenses and to require a left knee arthroplasty.
At trial, however, Attorney Laney was able to establish that the hand truck could not possibly have been placed as claimed by the plaintiff and also got the plaintiff to admit on cross-examination that she had, in fact, seen the hand truck as she walked toward it. In addition, he presented testimony from an orthopedic surgeon that the plaintiff sustained only a mild soft tissue injury in the fall. The total knee replacement was necessitated not by trauma, but by the plaintiff’s long history of osteoarthritis and other degenerative problems.
The jury deliberated for 43 minutes before returning a verdict in favor of the store.