Premises Liability

December 23, 2020

Navigating your construction site injury

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Construction sites are some of the most dangerous workplaces in Massachusetts. There are countless dangerous situations in on a construction project. Not only workers are in danger, individuals walking, or even driving by the worksite can be injured as well. Accidents happen all too often.

Construction site injuries are often serious and sometimes fatal. Negligent operation of heavy equipment, falls, or electrocution are just a few life-threatening events that happen on construction sites. Even a small hand tool falling from height can change someone’s life forever with loss of life, loss of limb, or other permanent disability. The impact of a serious injury extends well beyond the worker to their family and dependents.

If you have been injured, you should promptly report the injury to your supervisor, or if you are a self-employed contractor, the general contractor or landowner. Interviewing witnesses in the immediate aftermath when their memory is fresh may be critical to a legal case–experienced attorneys are trained to ask the most important questions in these situations. It is also imperative that you seek medical attention as soon as possible. Delay in medical attention is often used against the injured party at a later date, claiming the injury is faked or not severe. Additionally, the accident should be reported to the appropriate governmental authorities. However, interactions with entities like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, should be handled with care. Legal counsel can help you navigate these meetings.

January 17, 2020

How one woman’s tragic battle with uterine cancer saved an untold number of women from a similar fate

by Neumann Law Group

FDA-300x221 On May 23, 2017, Dr. Amy J. Reed, an anesthesiologist and mother of six children, passed away in her home at the age of 44. Her life was cut short by an aggressive form of uterine cancer, leiomyosarcoma. For her husband, the tragedy of her early death is entwined with regret and anger, as the two of them fought not only Stage IV leiomyosarcoma, but an intractable profession and the industry which profits from its practice.

At the age of 40, Dr. Reed was diagnosed with uterine fibroids. Fibroids are masses of the smooth muscle cells lining the inside of the uterus. Although fibroids are generally considered benign, their presence can cause serious discomfort and pain in the pelvic area. To treat her condition, Dr. Reed underwent a hysterectomy. She chose to have the procedure performed at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston—the hospital is affiliated with the Harvard Medical School, where both Dr. Reed and her husband, Dr. Hooman Noorchashm both held teaching positions.

After her surgery, the tissue was removed, and a biopsy was performed. The tissue contained leiomyosarcoma cells, an extremely aggressive form of uterine cancer. Although the biopsy revealed that the cancer cells had been confined to a very small area within a fibroid, the procedure through which the fibroids were removed seeded malignant cells throughout her abdomen. The dissemination of cancer cells caused her cancer to accelerate to Stage IV. The five-year survival rate for patients diagnosed with Stage IV leiomyosarcoma is only 14%.

July 11, 2019

Establishing Liability in a Massachusetts Slip-and-Fall Accident

by Neumann Law Group

Photo Credit: wedding and lifestyle / Shutterstock.com

Under Massachusetts law, landowners have a general duty to keep their property in a reasonably safe condition for invited guests. When a guest is injured due to some dangerous condition on another’s property, the injury victim can pursue a Massachusetts premises liability lawsuit against the landowner seeking compensation for their injuries.

To succeed in a premises liability case, a plaintiff must be able to establish that the landowner breached a duty of care that was owed to the plaintiff. Additionally, the plaintiff must show that the defendant’s breach of that duty resulted in their injuries. A recent federal appellate case from the First Circuit Court of Appeals illustrates the type of evidence necessary to prove a premises liability lawsuit.

May 28, 2019

Court Decides Whether 30-Day Notice Must Be Given to Private Companies Responsible for Massachusetts Road Defects

by Neumann Law Group

Photocredit: terekhov igor / Shutterstock.com

In a recent case before Massachusetts’s Supreme Judicial Court, the court was asked to clarify under what circumstances an injury victim was required to provide 30-day notice in cases involving road defects. In that case, the plaintiff was injured when he was riding his bike and hit a utility cover that was not completely aligned with the road. The plaintiff filed a negligence claim against the city, but the city claimed that an energy company was responsible for the misaligned cover. The plaintiff then brought a negligence claim against the energy company. However, a judge dismissed the plaintiff’s case for failure to provide notice to the company within thirty days of the plaintiff’s injury, as required by statute. The plaintiff appealed.

Under M. G. L. c. 84, § 15 of the Tort Claims Act, the statute generally imposes liability on the county, city, town or “person by law obliged to repair the same” for injuries caused by a defect “in or upon a way.” If a person’s claim falls under § 15, the plaintiff is required to give notice before bringing a claim. Under § 18, a person must provide notice within thirty days of the injury to the county, city, town or “person by law obliged to keep said way in repair.”

February 13, 2019

Massachusetts Appeals Court Declines to Apply Exception to 30-Day Notice Requirement in Recent Slip-and-Fall Case

by Neumann Law Group

Photo Credit: riopatuca / Shutterstock.com

Some laws can lead to harsh results, but when courts apply these laws they generally do so because of an honestly held belief that they are enforcing the law exactly as it is written. In a recent slip-and-fall case before a Massachusetts appeals court, the court dismissed the claim even though the plaintiff claimed she could not have known who the responsible party was within the allotted time.

The Facts of the Case

According to the court’s opinion, the plaintiff stepped on an uneven depression in a road in Boston and seriously injured her left foot. She notified the city of her claim within thirty days, and almost three months later, the city denied liability and claimed the Boston Gas Company was the responsible party. The plaintiff sent notice to Boston Gas the next day, and later filed a complaint against the city and the gas company.

Evidently, Boston Gas moved to dismiss the claim, arguing that the plaintiff failed to timely file notice of the claim. In this case, it was undisputed that the plaintiff did not notify the gas company within thirty days. However, the plaintiff argued that her failure to comply with the notice requirement was excusable because it was “virtually impossible” to know that the gas company was the responsible party within the thirty-day period.

July 2, 2018

Massachusetts Supreme Court Holds Public Housing Development Property Owner Liable for Damages from Injury

by Neumann Law Group

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.

October 3, 2017

State Supreme Court Holds Firefighter’s Rule Should Not Extend Beyond Premises Liability

by Neumann Law Group

A plaintiff, while working as a police officer, responded to a call at the home of the defendant. The call indicated that the defendant had locked himself inside the house and was threatening to hurt himself. After arriving at the home and making numerous requests of the defendant to enter, the plaintiff ultimately attempted to kick the door down and was seriously injured as a result. He alleged that his injuries were proximately caused by the defendant’s negligence. He did not make any allegations relating to conditions on the premises.The common-law firefighter’s rule provides that a firefighter or police officer who enters private property in the course of his employment duties generally cannot bring a civil action against the property owner for injuries sustained as a result of a defect in the premises. The plaintiff appealed from the trial court judgment in favor of the defendant. In granting the defendant’s motion to strike, the trial court concluded that the firefighter’s rule precluded the plaintiff’s sole claim, which was rooted in ordinary negligence. On appeal, the Supreme Court of Connecticut concluded that the firefighter’s rule should not extend beyond claims of premises liability. The court therefore reversed the trial court’s judgment in favor of the defendant and remanded the case to the trial court.

On appeal, the plaintiff asserted that the trial court incorrectly granted the motion to strike because his claim was not barred by the firefighter’s rule. Specifically, he claimed that the issue was controlled by the Connecticut Supreme Court’s decision in Levandoski v. Cone, in which the firefighter’s rule was limited to claims of premises liability.

In Levandoski, the Connecticut Supreme Court considered whether the firefighter’s rule should be extended beyond the scope of premises liability to bar a police officer from recovering from a defendant who does not control the premises. The Connecticut Supreme Court held that the firefighter’s rule should not extend to a non-premises liability case. In so holding, the court noted that since the firefighter’s rule is an exception to the general rule of tort liability, any loss should be endured by the negligent party. The burden of persuasion should rest with the party seeking to broaden the exception.

September 21, 2017

State Appeals Court Upholds Ruling for Plaintiff Following Hospital Slip & Fall

by Neumann Law Group

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.

May 17, 2017

Pennsylvania Woman Settles Federal Lawsuit Following Elevator Fall

by Neumann Law Group

A Philadelphia woman who filed a federal lawsuit following an elevator accident recently settled with the defendants. Last month, a U.S. District Court Judge announced the action was dismissed with prejudice, pursuant to an agreement.The plaintiff sued the elevator company, the property manager of the building, and the building’s owner. The amount of the settlement was undisclosed.

April 21, 2017

Holyoke Fire Victims Sue Property Owner and Management Company

by Neumann Law Group

A Holyoke family who narrowly escaped death during a January 1 fire filed suit for negligence on February 16 in Hampden Superior Court. Three victims were killed and 50 people were left homeless after the wild fire ravaged the four-story apartment building.Investigators decided the fire began when a wall outlet inside an apartment unit malfunctioned. The building was not equipped with sprinklers. (However, Massachusetts law did not require it to have a sprinkler system.) The investigators also concluded that the alarm system lost the connection to its monitoring company about a day prior to the fire. Thus, when the fire broke out, the alarms activated, but no signal was sent to the monitoring company. Accordingly, there was up to a 20-minute delay before the fire department was alerted t0 the fire.