Our client, a resident of California, attended a birthday party with approximately 20 others for a family member in a restaurant in Fort Myers, Florida. After the dinner was over she left the reserved banquet room to go pay her bill. She stepped from the carpeted area into the hallway which had a polished concrete floor surface. After only one step her foot slipped out from under her so quickly and violently that when she landed on her hip and buttock her foot literally went through the sheet rock wall. Fortunately members of the party took photographs of the area with their cell phones, which showed there were no wet floor signs posted in the hallway. The restaurant management filled out an incident report and took written statements from 2 members of the party that were eyewitnesses. When her claim was filed, the restaurant produced photographs of the hallway with wet floor signs prominently displayed in the hall area where the fall occurred. The restaurant manager testified that the floor was wet because our client dropped a glass of liquid in the area and slipped on what she had allegedly spilled. This defense version of events was contradicted by approximately one dozen eyewitnesses including the 2 eyewitnesses that gave written statements. The defense initially refused to produce these statements. Through our diligent investigation we were able to identify and locate the restaurant employee who had mopped the floor. He testified that a garbage bag had been dragged the entire length of the hallway to the back door and it had leaked liquid. He then mopped the entire length of the hallway and could not recall whether he had put up wet floor signs up or not. His testimony not only supported our version of events and all the eyewitness testimony but proved that the defense had attempted to fabricate what had actually occurred. Our client sought immediate medical attention in Florida and then again on her return to California. In a very short time she began exhibiting signs and symptoms of complex regional pain syndrome, which is a excruciatingly painful and unfortunately incurable neurological disorder. The classic signs and symptoms are severe pain, mottling of the skin and abnormal temperature fluctuations of the skin. Our client went under extensive treatment with a very well respected pain management center in Newport Beach, California and will likely require some degree of care for the rest of her life. The defense had our client examined by a renowned expert on complex regional pain syndrome at the USC medical school who conceded that our client suffered from this condition, that her condition was caused by the fall, that all of the care she had received was reasonable and necessary and that the life care plan for future medical needs that we had submitted was likewise reasonable and necessary.
