$9.1 Million for San Diego Woman Who Developed CRPS After Slipping on Water Leaking From an Out-of-Service ADA Bathroom at an AMC Theater

On June 17, 2018, Regina Hampton went with her family to the AMC theater in Poway to see Incredibles 2 on Father's Day. As she moved through the corridor, she stepped from carpet onto a tile threshold outside a restroom. The ADA bathroom was out of service and leaking water under its door. The moisture had saturated the adjacent carpet; Hampton tracked it onto the tile and fell hard.

Hampton broke her wrist, a non-displaced distal radial fracture that was treated conservatively without surgery. What followed was far more debilitating. She developed Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, a nervous-system disorder that causes disproportionate, chronic pain in the affected limb. Her treatment came to include a spinal cord stimulator implant and repeated Ketamine infusion therapy.

Carpenter and Zuckerman attorneys Pejman Ben-Cohen and Robert Ounjian, joined by San Diego co-counsel Fred Dudek of the Dudek Law Firm, brought the case against American Multi-Cinema, Inc. The defense, represented by Kenneth Kawabata of Manning, Kass, Ellrod, Ramirez, contested both liability and causation. AMC argued it had no actual or constructive notice of the water before the fall and that Hampton's pre-existing fibromyalgia and prior surgical history, not the incident, were responsible for her ongoing pain. The defense also offered $200,000 to settle before trial, which Hampton declined.

The plaintiff's team established that AMC had actual notice of the out-of-service bathroom and the water it was discharging, and presented medical testimony that either the fracture itself or the subsequent immobilization cast caused the CRPS. The jury accepted that account and rejected the defense's fibromyalgia theory.

On August 30, 2022, after an eight-day trial, the jury returned a verdict of $9,117,715, including $7.7 million for current and future non-economic damages. The amount exceeded AMC's applicable insurance coverage. No appeal reduction has been reported.