Case Dispositions
John Kamin recently successfully defended the denial of a workers’ compensation claim at the Appellate Court. Our client was a nursing home which employed a certified nursing assistant. A third-party vendor set up a trailer in the employer’s parking lot to sell uniforms. The CNA already clocked in to work but, with the permission of her supervisor, shopped for clothing prior to the start of her scheduled shift. She was exiting the vendor’s trailer to return to work and suffered a severe knee injury. The Commission determined the petitioner’s injuries did not arise out of or in the course of her employment and denied her claims. The Appellate Court also affirmed the judgment for the respondent, finding that the petitioner’s injuries did not arise out of her employment.
Jo Wetherill received summary judgment in a claim arising out of a slip and fall at a hotel. Plaintiff claimed that he tripped over a mat in the air lock area between the lobby and the front door of the hotel and tore his right rotator cuff. He claimed the edge of the mat was slightly risen. Summary judgment was granted on the basis that there was no apparent defect in the mat, and if there was, the condition of the mat was open and obvious.
Over the last several months, Jon Stump has obtained summary judgment on behalf of our clients in several cases.
In the first case, plaintiff claimed personal injuries as a result of slipping and falling on a step to a rental home owned by our client. Plaintiff claimed a defective down spout on the home created an unnatural accumulation of ice on the step. Jon’s Motion for Summary judgment was awarded on the basis that the four corners of the lease were not ambiguous and indicated that the defect was on leased premises not under the control of his client.
In the second case, plaintiff claimed personal injuries arising out of a slip and fall that occurred on our client’s premises. During plaintiff’s deposition, she was unable to testify as to the length of time that the alleged puddle of water that she claimed caused her fall was present. Jon moved for summary judgment on the basis that plaintiff failed to produce any evidence on the required element of notice to the defendant of any alleged dangerous condition. The court granted summary judgment on that basis.
In the third case, plaintiff filed a dram shop action claiming that our client caused the intoxication of a third party who subsequently became involved in an altercation with the plaintiff, punching him twice in the face. The court granted Jon’s Motion for Summary Judgment on the basis that plaintiff had insufficient evidence on the issue of whether our client provided intoxicating liquor to the third party.
In the fourth case, plaintiff suffered severe personal injuries and incurred over $600,000 in medical expenses as a result of a fall off of the platform of a scissor lift that had been elevated 20 feet in the air to allow plaintiff to paint the ceiling of a commercial building. Plaintiff filed suit against our client, which was the company that rented the scissor lift, the general contractor and two sub-contractors. Plaintiff’s theory against our client was that it provided a defective scissor lift because someone had removed the end railing prior to plaintiff’s use of the scissor lift and plaintiff testified that the proximate cause of his fall was the lack of the end railing. The court granted Jon’s Motion for Summary Judgment on the basis that no conduct on the part of our client was the proximate cause of plaintiff’s fall.
The fifth case involved a premises liability case Jon defended on behalf of a local store. Plaintiff was injured while “trying out” a piece of exercise equipment at our client’s store. Jon moved for summary judgment, successfully arguing that the machine constituted an open and obvious condition and thus our client owed no duty to warn or protect plaintiff from the equipment. The court granted the motion on that basis.