Unreasonable Leap of Faith – What are friends for?
March 2018, Scott Macdonald with trial support from Laura Reichenbach obtained a defense verdict in Orange County for an incident where an independent contractor fell from a scaffold at our client’s place of business.
We represented a small business owner. He hired a friend to assist with repairing the box on a bob tail truck. Our client’s friend utilized a mobile scaffold to work on the side of the truck. After finishing the day of work, he attempted to disembark the roof of the truck. In so doing he attempted to step to the outer portion of the of the scaffold and slipped. As he fell, he sustained a severe injury to his ankle. This included multiple fractures and a contention that the ankle had essentially been shattered under the full weight of the plaintiff. He required three surgeries including a total ankle replacement. Plaintiff sought over a million dollars.
At trial we were successful in convincing the jury that the sole cause of the accident was plaintiff’s negligence in failing to utilize the scaffold properly and for attempting to disembark the vehicle in the manner that he did. The jury returned a verdict in approximately 45 minutes.