$850,000 Jury Verdict for Trip-and-Fall Injury at Montefiore Medical Center

Montefiore Medical Center is one of the largest hospital systems in New York, drawing patients, visitors, and staff across an extensive complex of buildings and walkways. A dangerous condition on those premises became the center of a premises liability lawsuit brought by plaintiff Elphic, who tripped and fell on the property and suffered injuries as a result.

New York premises liability law requires property owners, including hospitals, to maintain their grounds in a reasonably safe condition and to warn visitors of hazards they know about or should have discovered through reasonable inspection. A trip-and-fall, legally distinct from a slip-and-fall, typically involves a physical defect in the surface, an elevation change, or a protrusion that catches a person's foot. Identifying who controlled the specific area and what notice the owner had is often the decisive issue at trial.

Attorney Jonathan E. Gold of Rosenbaum & Rosenbaum PC took the case to a jury. The theory of liability required Gold to establish that Montefiore knew, or in the exercise of reasonable care should have known, about the condition that caused the fall, and that the hospital had a reasonable opportunity to remedy it before the accident occurred.

The jury agreed with the plaintiff on both liability and damages, returning a verdict of $850,000. No post-verdict reduction or appeal is reflected in the published record of this result.

TopVerdict ranked the outcome 98th among the 100 largest plaintiff verdicts in New York for 2016, a year in which the state's civil courts resolved a broad range of personal injury cases. The result placed Elphic v. Montefiore Medical Center among the most significant premises liability outcomes in the state that year.