When an accident ends up causing injuries and impacting a victim’s life it can end up requiring costly medical treatment and can change the course of a person’s life either temporarily or permanently.
When that accident is caused by another person’s negligent actions, victims have the legal right to hold them accountable and take legal action in an attempt to recover monetary damages. Obtaining compensation for injuries is crucial for some accident victims as an injury can mean time away from work, yet medical expenses keep accumulating.
In 2009 Marie Wilson had an accident in her Manhattan apartment. Before the accident, the 86 year old was energetic and fit. She loved activities like hiking and was perfectly capable. But then she slipped and fell inside her apartment and ended up sustaining serious injuries that lead to the need for a hip replacement and months of physical therapy.
Older people can sometimes have trouble getting around. And due to stability issues, will sometimes fall. But Wilson’s fall was not so straightforward and could not be blamed on her age. Wilson says that the truth was that there was a renovation project in her apartment underway in 2009 and one of the workers left a plastic drop cloth on the floor, which she then slipped on.
Glenn Herman, Marie Wilson’s lawyer, said that no one would accept responsibility for the accident and there was no choice but to take the case to trial. The contractor blamed the owner of the building, while the owner said that obviously it was the contractor’s fault. So the case went to trial and Herman requested that the jury award his client $900,000.
However, after hearing all of the evidence during the six day trial and deliberating for only 40 minutes, the jury came back and announced their decision to award Wilson $1,050,000. Herman says that the jury was very sympathetic to Wilson and her story and believed her when she said that she slipped on the drop cloth, even though the defendants claimed that she tripped over a rug.
The renovation project had been to replace the windows in Wilson’s Manhattan studio apartment. In order to replace the windows the workmen had moved all of the furniture away from the walls so that the windows were easily accessible. It was the foreman who claimed that Wilson had tripped over a rolled up rug that had been placed there by building staff, but maintained that it was the drop cloth that made her fall. The jury believed her testimony.
She needed a hip replaced and extensive therapy but but she persevered and rehabbed successfully. According to Herman she was able to go from needing a walker after surgery, to using a cane, and now she needs neither.
Her life expectancy was estimated to be 5 years, but the jury predicted 8 years because of what excellent shape she was in.
