Articles Posted in Personal Injury

A resident of a public housing development in Framingham was seriously injured after slipping and falling on the stairs. He filed a claim for damages against the Framingham Housing Authority, Musterfield Place, LLC, (a “controlled affiliate” of the housing authority), and the managing agent of the property. The owner and managing agent of the property filed a partial summary judgment motion that would classify them as public employers. Under the Tort Claims Act, public employers are only liable for damages up to $100,000. The court denied this motion and instead classified the manager and owners of the building as “controlled affiliates.” As “controlled affiliates” they are not public employers and thus do not get the benefit of the damage cap. If you are injured at your apartment building or at another location, you should contact a skilled Massachusetts premises liability attorney as soon as possible to help represent you. This decision allows injured people the ability to collect the full damages they are due for their injuries.

Facts of the Case

The building that Plaintiff lived in had been identified as being in need of rehabilitation in 2009. As the housing authority did not have the money themselves to fix the building, private investors bought in to the property partially to get the tax credits associated with the investment. In order to help raise money for low income housing, the housing authority allows these investors to buy and sell the tax credits that they have no use for, as they are not subject to federal taxes. These investors are then deemed “controlled affiliates.” A controlled affiliate is an entity that owns and manages public housing. In return for the tax credits, the affiliates must keep the property affordable for low and moderate income renters for 15 years.

A Connecticut resident filed suit for negligence after injuring herself while walking to the Danbury Hospital parking lot. She prevailed during a bench trial, and the defendant appealed. The Connecticut Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s decision, which may be interesting to Massachusetts slip and fall claimants as well.In June 2010, the victim and her daughter were visiting the victim’s husband, who was being treated at Danbury Hospital. After their visit, they exited the hospital’s main building and walked onto a walkway leading toward the parking lot. They were familiar with this walkway, since they had made this same trip several times in the past.

While they were walking along the pathway, the victim hit something with her foot and fell to the ground. As a result of the fall, she sustained injuries to her right foot and ankle. It later was determined that she had broken her big toe and damaged the fifth metatarsal of her right foot. Within minutes of the fall, she was taken to Danbury’s emergency room, where she was examined and treated for her injuries. As a result of her fall, she experienced chronic lower back pain from a protruded disc that required several epidural steroid injections and, eventually, a surgical decompression procedure. The lower court ruled for the victim following a bench trial.

On appeal, the defendant first claimed that the trial court erroneously found that the defect in the walkway that caused the plaintiff’s injuries was a reasonably foreseeable hazard. The appeals court disagreed, reasoning that the trial court reviewed reports prepared by members of the defendant’s security and medical staff, as well as photographs depicting the alleged defect and the surrounding area, and it heard the testimony of the plaintiff and her daughter describing the fall and the defect. The trial court therefore had before it adequate evidence of a broken slab of pavement that contained a chip in a well-traveled walkway that had existed for a sufficient period of time. Thus, the appeals court concluded that the findings related to this claim were not clearly erroneous, and the conclusions were not unreasonable.