The city of Whittier has agreed to pay $7.5 million to a woman who suffered injuries after tripping over an unraised sidewalk, the woman’s attorney announced Friday.
Justine Gurrola said she was walking down a sidewalk with her nephew in Whittier on Feb. 25, 2018. When her foot caught an uplift, she fell forward, her attorneys said.
“Gurrola reached out her arm to try to break her fall and ultimately face-planted on the cement,” her legal team said in a statement.
Her lawyers also said the sidewalk was raised about 2 inches above ground at the time of the incident because of the unmanaged tree roots.
““Whittier is known for its trees and it has beautiful trees, that’s what makes it. Unfortunately, sometimes that can be unsafe,” Gurrola said.
The legal team argued that the city failed to carry out its responsibility of maintaining public spaces like sidewalks.
At the time of the fall, the city did not have any system in place to inspect sidewalks within the jurisdiction, according to Gurrola’s lawyers. Even when the city was forced to have an inspection system as part of the requirement from the city’s insurer two years after Gurrola’s fall, the attorneys said, Whittier did not have plans to document sidewalk inspections. NBC Los Angeles was not independently verify the claims.
“The City knew that tree roots were a problem to contend with and required the city to replace the damaged elements,” the lawyers said, adding a city official testified that “tree roots that cause sidewalk damage” is the most prominent claim filed against the city.
Seven years after the fall, Gurrola continued to seek treatment for the brain injury that caused a significant volume loss in her frontal and temporal lobes, which led to loss of executive function, emotional regulation, and memory capacity, her attorneys said.
“The things I loved to do I could no longer. It made me really sad,” Gurrola said, adding that her lawsuit against the city was never about the money. “I think the biggest thing is that other people won’t suffer from this.”
NBCLA reached out to the city about the sidewalk inspection system and the cost of sidewalk repairs. The city of Whittier did not respond as of Friday afternoon.