By Steve Rhodes
In at least one courtroom in America on Wednesday, justice was served.
The jury I sat on this week found for the City of Evanston against a 72-year-old woman who claimed she tripped on a misaligned tree grate and face-planted. She asked for about $20,000 in medical reimbursement and $70,000 for pain and suffering. We said no – and it wasn’t even close. In fact, deliberations would have gone even faster if we weren’t enjoying the pizza brought in for lunch.
Now, there was no question that the woman tripped and suffered injuries. There was a huge question, though, whether she tripped on the tree grate or something else, including her own feet. And even if we found our way to blame the tree grate, I doubt we would have found any differently seeing as how we determined that Evanston reasonably cared for its grates and that any misalignment – also in question – was not due to negligent maintenance.
I may write up more about the case later, because it was sort of fascinating in its own way, even though we essentially thought it was frivolous. For now, I’ll try to ease back into the news. I can’t catch up with everything in one day, people!
Posted on November 5, 2015