OK, I have mentioned my jury duty experience a couple times on here but I'll get more detailed this time.
Last fall, I was on a jury for a civil lawsuit in Dallas County. A woman and her husband were suing a church in Waukee for negligence. This church had 2 foot tall and 4 foot wide cornerstone (from the original church built like a hundred years ago) mounted onto the center of a “walkway” outside of the church which leads to the doors.
This particular church had a daycare in the basement (which was not affiliated with the church other than renting out the space) and the woman plaintiff worked on staff for several years at the daycare. One day while going into the daycare with her kids she was distracted talking to some other lady and walking backwards and tripped and fell over the stone (while she was pregnant) and shattered her forearm pretty badly.
She had some pretty bad, lingering injuries including constant tingling and pain and still has some to this day. Luckily, there was no harm to her unborn child. A couple years go by and they bring up this lawsuit.
Now, for lawsuit details…
The plaintiffs argued that the church was negligent for having the stone in the middle of a “sidewalk.” And that they were responsible for medical expense plus “emotional damages” plus lost income and PTO, etc. for the husband having to take time off work (I will get into this claim more).
A little more background info…
The woman did have a real and ongoing issue with her arm – which everyone in the jury sympathized with. She had her baby a few months later and had some issues taking care of it because she could not use one arm. She was a stay at home mom and the husband was the only income source. The family also had like 3 or 4 other kids. The family was claiming emotional damages (asking for $150,000 or so) because the mother was “unable to bond” with the baby. A side note - In the time between the accident (and the birth of the child) and the time they decided to sue they had another baby.
The defense argued this:
This woman had worked at this daycare for years and walked in and out of the building thousands of times with no incident. Nobody else had ever fallen and the plaintiff had never brought up the cornerstone as something that should be moved(she claimed that she always felt it was an issue but the defense brought up 3 or 4 witnesses that basically laughed it off saying she was full of crap basically). People take pictures with the cornerstone all the time and even kids play on it. The “sidewalk” was like 10 feet wide and not a small sidewalk, so the cornerstone CLEARLY divided it into two smaller walkways. Also, I want to add that the jury’s main defense was a “common sense” argument and that of reasonable care. Should someone using reasonable care expect to not fall over this thing!?
I ended up being the spokesperson for the jury and kind of lead the discussion. The jury was overwhelming unsympathetic for these 2 main reasons:
1.The main reason was because it WAS A FREAKING ACCIDENT and accidents happen.
2.One of the main things that killed the families “emotional distress” claim in our minds was the fact that they were claiming the wife couldn’t bond with her baby because of the injuries – but in the meantime, she got pregnant AGAIN – just a few months later. Are you kidding me!? If you can’t afford your medical bills and you have a single income house, then DON’T GET PREGNANT AGAIN! (a sidenote – they were members of the church of latter day saints – figures…)
We found the church not negligent at all. We all felt that it would be better for the church to put the stone somewhere else but that using reasonable care should be expected by people walking to and from. I think the plaintiffs were SHOCKED but we all felt very strongly that this was an accident and accidents happen.
I’m sure I left out a lot of details but you get the gist of it…
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