$1.66M Jury Verdict for Commercial Tenant Left with Permanent Brain Damage After Stairway Fall

On March 20, 2006, James Phillips was descending an exterior stairway at a commercial property in Ada County, Idaho, carrying a box of trash to dispose of it. He fell while on the lower flight of steps and was found face-down on the concrete landing at the bottom. The cause became clear during investigation: the landlords, Milt and Mary Erhart, had installed concrete stairs with two treads bolted on only one side, leaving the structure unstable.

Phillips sustained a closed head injury that caused permanent brain damage and lasting memory loss, along with other physical injuries. His wife, Gale Phillips, suffered the loss of her husband's companionship and support. The injuries altered both of their lives permanently.

Kurt Holzer of Holzer Edwards, Chtd. (now Hepworth Holzer, LLP) represented the Phillips family at trial. Holzer argued that the landlords' faulty installation of the stairs constituted willful and reckless conduct, a finding the jury ultimately accepted. The trial in the Fourth District Court took place in April 2009.

The jury awarded James Phillips $546,174 in economic damages and $562,000 in noneconomic damages, and awarded Gale Phillips $556,200 in noneconomic damages for loss of consortium, bringing the total verdict to $1,664,374. The district court subsequently granted a remittitur, ordering a new trial unless the plaintiffs accepted a reduction in economic damages to $253,014.49. The Phillipses accepted the reduction, and the court entered judgment accordingly.

The Erharts appealed. The Idaho Supreme Court affirmed in 2011, holding that sufficient evidence supported both the causation findings and the jury's determination that the landlords had acted in a willful and reckless manner. The reported citation is Phillips v. Erhart, 151 Idaho 100, 254 P.3d 1 (Idaho 2011).