School is the last place you would expect to suffer a traumatic brain injury, broken ribs, a fractured foot, and incomplete paraplegia, but that’s what happened to a 58-year-old student at a vocational school with a faulty roof. According to October’s issue of Trial magazine, the student’s attorney contended that the roof that collapsed on her was “improperly maintained, inspected, and modified,” and that the “contractor had overweighted the roof with equipment, causing it to sag.” The school had allowed the drainage system to get clogged and the roofing contractor failed to correct the sagging problem. These factors combined to create the devastating damage done not only to the school but most especially to this student’s life.
The student was attending the school to become a nurse. Now at the age of 58, she will need a lifetime of medical and daily assistance — assistance she had hoped to provide to others. She is currently in a wheelchair and “was hospitalized and in rehabilitation for six months” after the roof collapse. With medical bills mounting over $200,000 and with her lost future earnings estimated at $290,000, this victim of negligence is also expected to incur another $5 million in medical expenses and life-long assistance she now requires. Despite this, there is a silver lining for this student.
She sought the help of a personal injury lawyer who was able to negotiate a settlement with the school and the contractor for $9 million. As a personal injury lawyer who knows the satisfaction of righting wrongs such as these and similar cases involving traumatic brain injury, I’d like to congratulate attorney Joel Krissman of Long Beach, California (CA), for his diligence in this case, for holding the school and the contractor responsible, and for helping this woman, who once had hoped to help others, move forward.
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