Kristina Sanders-Brown | Oshkosh Personal Injury Lawyer

We recently settled four slip/fall cases out of our Madison office. These cases are always difficult, and many lawyers don’t even want to discuss slip/fall cases with potential clients. We do quite well with them — one involved a tenant who fell on a defective step at her rental property, and was settled without filing a lawsuit for $45,000. Another involved a tenant who caught her foot on a broken stair, causing her to fall, and this one also settled without having to file suit for $17,500. A third injury was caused by a negligent car dealership when an employee moved a car from the showroom, but failed to remove the clear lexan pieces that were under the car tires to protect the floor — that case was in suit, but settled before trial for $41,000. The final slip/fall case we resolved in December for $100,000 — landlord failed to remove build up of snow and ice from the trash and recycle area he provided for tenants, and as could be predicted, a tenant fell, fracturing her leg. We told all these people the WE CAN HELP, and their cases were resolved with good results.

We recently settled a claim against a fast food restaurant involving a fall due to ice build up near their entry door. The cause? No, not a bad winter in Wisconsin. It was due to a bad roof design — to prevent water from dripping on customers as they entered, the store had a flat bar at an angle on the roof, which directed the water away from the entrance, and onto a portion of the sidewalk where customers walked. What happened? In winter, as ice and snow melted on the roof, it ran down until it hit the barricade, and was directed onto the sidewalk, where it promptly froze. It had to be a frequent problem, but no one bothered to put salt on it. After our claim, the restaurant reconstructed the roof to make it safe, so not only did our client receive compensation for his injury — he helped prevent injury to others by encouraging the restaurant to correct the problem. That is one of the goals of our personal injury system — to make places and products safer for consumers. It worked here!

In 2019 we settled a bicycle collision case in our Madison office. Our bicyclist suffered a fractured leg when the at fault driver turned into a driveway right in front of his bike, causing him to fly over the hood of the vehicle. The negligent driver had only $25,000 of liability coverage, and that insurer promptly paid us the policy limits. We got an additional $5000 from client’s auto medical payments coverage, and his Arizona medical carrier agreed to waive reimbursement for client’s surgery bills. Finally, we received $150,000 from client’s underinsured motorist policy. Total settlement $180,000 and all reimbursements waived. Should allow this UW-Madison student to pay off most of his student loans!