$6,200,000 VERDICT

SLIP AND FALL OUTSIDE GROCERY STORE

Our client, age 46 female, slipped and fell on a piece of wet cardboard on a faux brick tile walkway in Harlem, NY. Her fall caused serious and permanent injuries including tears in her left knee, tears in her left shoulder and disc injuries to her neck and back. She had surgery to repair her left knee and another surgery to repair her left shoulder; she was recommended to have spinal surgery, but did not undergo that procedure.

Greenberg Law P.C. argued that the store negligently placed cardboard on the walkway at the store’s entrance, and that on the rainy day of our client’s fall the cardboard had turned mushy. That soft and slippery cardboard caused her to slip and skid as she exited the store. The lawyers and insurance company for the supermarket refused to admit they had done anything wrong and refused to offer her fair compensation for her injuries. The supermarket manager maintained that he had no memory of any incident, and he testified that the supermarket never used cardboard in place of outdoor mats.

Our team refused to give up or settle for anything less than fair compensation, so the case went to trial. Despite the challenge of not having photo evidence of the cardboard that caused her to fall, we insisted that the supermarket was responsible for the condition. To prove our case, we successfully obtained sworn affidavits from individuals who had seen the store put down cardboard, and we secured a report from an EMT at the scene stating that she told them she had slipped on wet cardboard. The supermarket’s lawyers filed numerous motions at trial trying to argue to the court that there were a number of problems with our case, but the judge denied all of their motions.

The trial, which took place during the challenging reopening of the courts during Covid, when everyone had to be masked and socially distanced, lasted six days. The jury had to decide the case based on which witnesses and experts were more knowledgeable and more believable. In a passionate closing argument by Alan Greenberg, he appealed to the jury asking whether they truly believed that our client had been so clever and so devious a liar as to make up the idea of the cardboard being at the entrance in the ten minutes before the EMTs arrived; he asked the jury whether they believed that she then faked her limp and limited range of motion, and agreed to undergo multiple surgeries and all types of therapy if she was not seriously injured in this fall. Mr. Greenberg asked the jury to return a verdict of $600,000 in past damages, and $3 million in future damages for the rest of her life.

In less than two hours the jury came back and announced that yes, the supermarket had negligently caused our client’s fall and injuries. The jury returned a verdict of $6.2 million for past and future damages and pain and suffering. The parties entered into a high-low agreement prior to the verdict of $275,000 to $1,000,000, so the case ultimately settled for $1 million. At the time of the publication of this summary in September 2021, this verdict is still the second highest jury verdict in the State of New York, and the highest jury verdict in New York County, for the year 2021.