(Please note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this slip and fall/personal injury case and its proceedings.)
Defendant ABC Hotel’s Trial Brief
INTRODUCTION
Plaintiff was talking to her friend and admittedly not paying attention to where she was walking when she allegedly tripped over a stack of luggage in her suite at the ABC Hotel. Now, she seeks to blame the Hotel for her injuries that allegedly resulted from that fall.
Plaintiff and her husband flew into town with another couple, via private jet, during Labor Day weekend, 2005, to celebrate plaintiff’s 40th birthday. The two couples planned to share a suite for one night at the ABC Hotel. While waiting for their suite, they had food and drinks at a Hotel bar and swam in the pool.
After arriving at their room later that day, plaintiff was speaking with her friend in the bedroom. Plaintiff stood closest to the doorway separating the bedroom from the common area, with her back to the common area as she was facing toward her friend. At some point, she began to leave the conversation and blindly stepped backward toward the common area. It was then that she allegedly tripped over seven to eight pieces of luggage in the common area of the suite.
ABC Hotel is not responsible for plaintiff’s fall or her injuries. Seven or eight pieces of black luggage on the floor of the hotel suite does not constitute a dangerous condition.
They were in plain sight for all to see, particularly with their dark color in contrast to the lighter colored carpet in a well-illuminated hotel suite on a late summer afternoon. Even assuming there was evidence of a dangerous condition, the stack of dark luggage was open and obvious to everyone, including plaintiff had she been watching where she was walking.
ABC Hotel and its employees were not negligent in any manner that caused or contributed to plaintiff’s injury or her claimed damages. (See Part 2 of 8.)
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.