72-year Old Man Suffered Severely Fractured Ankle That Required Surgical Repair

DISCLAIMER: The results are specific to the facts and legal circumstances of each of the clients’ cases and should not be used to form an expectation that the same results could be obtained for other clients in similar matters without reference to the specific factual and legal circumstances of each client’s case.

Our client was injured outside a popular premium casual restaurant in Winter Springs.  Our client was a 72-year old man who had been dining with a business associate and was returning with his companion to his car.  His car was parked in an area of the restaurant parking lot that was adjacent to a tree planter.

The oak trees in the planter were mature, and the roots from the oak trees had caused upwellings in the asphalt in the parking spaces.  The upwellings caused the asphalt surface to be very uneven.  This condition was known to the restaurants owners – who had planned to fix the problem as part of a large renovation project, but just hadn’t gotten to it yet.

Fractured Ankle Requires Surgery With Hardware Implantation

Our client suffered a very serious ankle fracture – more particularly, a bimalleolar equivalent closed fracture, a sprain of the distal tibiofibular syndemosis, and a rupture of the deltoid ligament.  The following day he had a surgery where his foot and ankle were opened and internal fixation hardware was installed.  Our client’s peroneal tendon was also surgically re-attached.

To make matters worse, our client developed deep vein thrombosis in his surgically repaired leg, requiring a lengthy regimen of blood thinners – which made our client feel very ill.  Eventually, a few of the original surgical screws had to be removed – which required an additional surgery.

Our client tried very hard in physical therapy to regain function, but his foot and ankle remain painful and limited.

Comparative Negligence Defense

Throughout litigation the Defendant raised the typical defenses that are utilized to defend practically every premises liability or trip and fall cases. The Defendant argued that our client did not use reasonable care for his own safety, by not looking where he was going.  They argued that he should have seen the upwelling and easily avoided it.  In Florida, this is called comparative negligence.

At mediation we were able to secure a $100,000.00 settlement for our client.

$100,000