Kern County Jury Awards $16.2 Million Over El Pollo Loco Fall

In 2012, William Kidd and his wife, Elaine, shared a bottle of red wine at home and then drove to an El Pollo Loco in Bakersfield to get something to eat. At some point during the meal, William stood up to use the restroom. He slipped, fell to the floor, and hit his head. The fall did not look serious at first, and the couple went home.

It did not stay minor. Over the following weeks, Kidd's condition got worse. He started having cognitive problems that grew harder to ignore, and doctors found that blood had collected around his brain. He needed surgery to drain it. The injury was diagnosed as a mild traumatic brain injury, a category of harm that does not always appear right away yet can change how a person thinks, remembers, and gets through an ordinary day.

The Kidds sued El Pollo Loco. The case went to trial in Kern County Superior Court in Bakersfield and ran 14 days. John Gomez and Jessica Sizemore of Gomez Trial Attorneys tried the case with Matthew Faulkner of Faulkner Law Offices. The restaurant denied that it was responsible for the fall. Its lawyers pointed to the wine the couple had split earlier that evening, and they argued that Kidd's cognitive problems came from pre-existing medical conditions rather than from striking his head. To win, the plaintiffs' team had to convince the jury that the floor where Kidd fell was unsafe and that the head injury, not his medical history, explained the decline that followed.

The jury rejected that account. It found that William Kidd was not negligent and placed responsibility for the fall and the injury that followed on El Pollo Loco. Kidd's documented medical expenses came to roughly $177,000.

For the harm itself, the jury awarded $16 million in noneconomic damages: $13 million to William for his injury and $3 million to Elaine for what the fall cost their marriage. Added to the economic losses, the award reached $16.2 million.

The verdict came down in February 2018, six years after the night Kidd fell at the restaurant.