Personal injury settlement for renter stumbled on loose step at Chicago apartment building
In this case our client was a young lady who rented an apartment at a three-flat in Chicago. The three apartments were each separately owned as condominiums.
Our client lived in the apartment only a short time before her daughter complained to the landlord, who was also a member of the condominium association, that the steps leading up to the common door to the building was loose. Only a short time later our client was leaving to go to work when the loose step gave way under her and she stumbled, injuring her left ankle and foot.
Ultimately our client had to undergo a surgery to repair torn ligaments in her ankle. Our client's group health insurance carrier covered the medical bills. That meant that if we recovered any money for our client, we would have to also resolve the lien of the health insurer.
We were able to persuade the property insurer for the condominium association to pay our client $22,000 while she was off work recovering from her surgery, as a supplement to a disability insurance policy our client had through her employer. But, the insurer refused to pay anything else for pain and suffering or the disability resulting from the injury.
As the date two years after the accident approached, we filed a lawsuit against both the landlord and the condominium association in order to stay within the two year statute of limitations that applies to most injury cases in Illinois. Both entities had insurance.
We spent approximately a year and a half litigating the matter and taking our client's and the landlord's depositions. At the landlord's deposition we were able to extract his concession that his property manager may have had the condition of the step reported to him before the accident, and that it was not promptly repaired. Shortly after this deposition we were able to settle the case with the condominium association's insurance for $165,000 in addition to the $22,000 already recovered, as well as resolution of all outstanding medical bills and liens.
