A Florida woman won $11 million after she tripped and fell at a Target store located in the suburb of Winter Garden, on Oct. 17.
The 44-year-old woman lawyered up with Morgan & Morgan attorneys Matt Morgan, Fan Li, and Perry Nava to sue both Target Corporation and Site Centers Corp, which owns the Winter Garden Village property where the plaintiff fell and suffered damages.
The plaintiff took a chance and turned down the pre-trial settlement offer of $250,000 before being awarded the eight-figure verdict. In total, she won $11,391,183.28. The defendants were found to be 90% at fault for the incident.
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The Target incident occurred on December 23, 2019, when the plaintiff parked in the Target parking lot at the Winter Garden Village shopping center on Daniels Road.
She waited for the long game for retribution following the significant injuries she endured from the fall.
How did the woman fall in the Target parking lot?
The incident occurred when the plaintiff was carrying her daughter between parked vehicles in the Target parking lot to avoid the hectic holiday traffic and puddles.
However, when she was walking by a landscaping island, she didn’t realize that a seam between the asphalt and the concrete gutter area of the curb created an unmarked change in elevation that violated multiple building codes, according to the woman’s lawyers.
When she walked onto the raised surface, her left ankle twisted and fractured, causing her to fall to the right on the ground.
Since she was carrying her child at the time, she landed awkwardly while trying not to drop it. This led to her landing “to the right in an awkward, pretzel-like position,” per the law firm.
She suffered a right tibia fracture, a right fibula fracture, and a right lateral malleolus fracture, and ultimately had to undergo a procedure to repair the injuries to her leg. Now the plaintiff has to live the rest of her life with hardware in her leg that was installed during the procedure.
“Our client suffered a devastating and lifelong injury due to the defendants’ negligence, and she now lives with pain and limitations from the metal rods and screws in her right leg,” said the plaintiff’s attorneys, Matt Morgan and Fan Li, in a statement.
Continuing, they added, “This verdict spoke the full truth as to the level of human harms and losses sustained by our client in the past and the future. We’re pleased that our presentation of the evidence resonated with jurors, who delivered a just verdict which we hope will make up for the ways in which our client’s life was irrevocably altered through no fault of her own.”