Los Angeles, California (June 27, 2008) - Just weeks after Los Angeles Personal Injury Attorney David Drexler and his co- counsel, Ron Torem filed a defense motion for a summary judgment with the Honorable Mary Thornton House in a contentious Slip and Fall case, the legal team won a $1,000,000 settlement for their client, Eric Thompson. Thompson, a severe hemophiliac, slipped and fell on an oil spill in his apartment building’s stairway. Despite the defense’s contention they had no notification of the spill, Drexler and Torem produced witnesses who disputed that claim, forcing the large settlement in the Los Angeles Slip and Fall case.
In this contentious Los Angeles Slip and Fall case, Eric Thompson, a nineteen-year-old, unemployed man has suffered from a severe and rare form of hemophilia his entire life. On May 12, 2006, Thompson was walking down the steps of his South Central Los Angeles apartment building, unaware that someone had tossed an uncapped bottle of motor oil down the stairwell. Thompson slipped and fell hard, injuring his jaw, left wrist and forearm, left elbow and right knee. Thomson suffered internal bleeding in his jaw, knee and wrist in the Slip and Fall incident.
His supervised therapies included a drawn out attempt to stop the internal bleeding, using injections of an expensive medication called NOVO 7. Bleeding into the joints, experts agree, causes severe joint damage, often-requiring replacement of the joint. And though Thompson’s subsequent knee replacement in July 2006 was a pre-existing condition, the expenses he incurred while hospitalized related to the Slip and Fall were $66,808.96.
Los Angeles Personal Injury Attorney Drexler’s contention that the building’s management, Barker Management and owner West “A” Homes, had been negligent in adequately cleaning up an oil spill on the stairwell after being notified of the hazard was supported by the plaintiff’s witness, Maria Maroquin. Moroquin, a cleaning lady, claimed to remember wiping up oil on that stairwell, in the days prior to the Slip and Fall incident. However, she spoke only Spanish, a language the supervisory personnel in the building did not speak, making the serious nature of the problem unclear to her. Drexler contended that management negligently failed to follow up on the spill, creating a hazardous condition left unchecked that resulted in the Slip and Fall incident.
Three months before trial was set to begin, and two weeks before a summary judgment was scheduled to be heard before the Hon. Mary Thornton House, Drexler and Torem made a compromise offer to the defendants for $1,000,000. The defendants accepted that offer and settled the Los Angeles Slip and Fall case for that amount
