Fractured Ankle From Fall On The Ice On A Motel Sidewalk

As an example of an ankle injury from a slip on an icy surface, we relate the experience of a client we will call “Gordon,” who suffered a right ankle fracture when he slipped on an icy walkway at a motor inn located near Bellingham, Washington.

Gordon’s fall required that he have a surgery called an open reduction and internal fixation of the displaced comminuted trimalleolar right ankle fracture. He was off work a period of six months. At his regular hourly rate of $13.00, 40 hours per week (not accounting for overtime), his total wage loss was $12,480.

Like many cases where a client falls on an icy surface, the key issue was the relative responsibility of the motor inn and Gordon himself for the fall, including the motor inn’s claim that Gordon was intoxicated. Since this issue was contested, we looked at liability from three different points of view: what we knew happened, what our witnesses said happened, and what the motor inn’s witnesses said happened.

1. What We Knew Happened:

We carefully gathered meteorological records collected at the nearby Bellingham International Airport to demonstrate that temperatures were below freezing and it was snowing on the evening prior to Gordon’s early morning fall.
For the week ahead of December 16, temperatures ran mostly in the upper 20s with a small amount of precipitation. On December 14, there were traces of snow, then it warmed up on the evening of the 14th to the low 40s and began to rain. In the early morning hours of the 15th, the temperature dropped to the low 30s (33) and turned back to traces of snow again.
By the morning of the 15th, at approximately 6:00 AM, there was rain and temperatures of 33, 35, and dropping back to the upper 20s in the afternoon of the 15th. By dark on that day, it dropped to mid and lower 20s with a trace of snow recorded at about 11:00 PM and again at about midnight. On the morning of the 16th, there was a trace of snow at 1:00 AM, at 1:53 AM and at 2:53 AM. Gordon slipped on an icy walkway (ice covered by a small covering of snow) just after midnight on December 16. We then took testimony of the motor inn employees to show that they failed in their duty to remove the snow. We established that the motor inn management had assigned the duty of clearing the walkways to the maintenance person, and to their van drivers.

We established that the maintenance person went home at 3:30 PM, and couldn’t recall whether he had cleared the walkways, that the van driver who normally had snow clearing duty took the evening of the 15th off because it was his birthday, and that none of the other van drivers cleared the walkways. Van drivers were off after 11 P.M. and there was no one available to clear walkways from 11 P.M. to 5 A.M. Even assuming that maintenance cleared the walkways in the afternoon, the motor inn personnel failed to have someone available to clear walkways after 3:30 P.M. when the wet walkways froze and it snowed again.

We therefore knew that on the evening prior to the fall, the walkways at the motor inn had a thin covering of ice, topped by a small amount of snow, and that the motor inn failed to clear their walkways that evening.

2. What Gordon’s witnesses said:

Gordon’s witnesses were company executives and their wives who were staying at the motor inn after attending their Christmas party at a nearby local banquet hall. These out-of-town executives and their wives were on their best behavior as they were meeting senior management. Everyone associated with the Christmas party testified that drinking was tightly controlled, with each attendee receiving two, and only two, drink tickets. They uniformly testified that Gordon was at his first corporate Christmas party, was eager to impress senior management, and was not at all intoxicated.

Following the Christmas party, the out-of-town guests retired to the motor inn, talked together for a bit, and then Gordon and David walked outside, intending to walk down the street to a local mini-market. As they walked on the motor inn’s walkway, they were very close to the ground-floor room of Frank, where Frank and Ken were talking with the window open. David slipped on the icy walkway and fell down. They both laughed and then Gordon immediately slipped and fell too — but he fractured his ankle! Frank and Ken both heard David and Gordon talking, heard David fall, and then heard Gordon fall. So four witnesses were either at the site or overheard the fall from a nearby room.

Ken’s wife, Linda, an accountant for the U.S. Department of Justice, and David’s wife Darleen, a stay at home mother of two, along with their husbands, all clearly testify that Gordon was not intoxicated. The paramedic who attended Gordon at the scene and carried him via ambulance to St. Joseph Hospital, testified at deposition that if Gordon had been intoxicated at all, he would have noted it in his report, as the patient’s intoxication is an important fact for the Emergency Room physician to know. But he noted no signs of intoxication. The Emergency Room physician who treated the fracture at St. Joseph Hospital similarly noted no alcohol involvement.

Our witnesses saw this as pure and simple a slip and fall on an uncleared icy walkway with a thin covering of snow.

3. What the motor inn’s witnesses said:

The key defense witness, the hotel night clerk, testified that although she did not see the event occur, several of the above-listed witnesses told her after the event that Gordon fractured his ankle because he was horsing around, had climbed onto Ken’s back, and was trying to tap on a second floor window to attract the attention of another guest, when they both slipped, fell, and Gordon fractured his ankle. Every witness denied making this statement to the night clerk. It was an explanation of the fall put forward by one person, the night clerk, who herself failed to clear the walkways. She also claimed that Gordon was drinking in the lobby prior to the fall. Again, half a dozen reputable witnesses contradicted her story. Her credibility was so poor that the motor inn subsequently fired her for misconduct unrelated to this claim.

The basic issue for the jury was: Who do you believe? Faced with the thorough evidentiary workup, the insurer for the motor inn chose to pay Gordon $175,000 rather than take the matter to trial. Gordon was represented by attorney Dean Brett of Brett Murphy.