Falling downspout off building of chain drug store severely injures school assistant on her lunch break

$250,000

While attempting to walk into the building, a completely frozen downspout that was loosely fastened came crashing down onto a woman’s shoulder causing her knee to smash into the hard asphalt pavement, fracturing her knee cap. Years of discovery ensued after the suit was filed. To get to the root cause of the preventable incident, Attorney Goodman sued the drug store, architect, structural engineer, construction company and sheet metal fabricator. He retained an expert architect to review all depositions and plans. It was discovered that the screws used to fasten the downspouts into the imitation stucco walls were not long enough to hold the downspouts and that architecturally speaking, the design was a flawed design that did not belong in New England winters but was adequate for Texas where the architect lived. Internal heated roof drains would be the standard of care for winter weather. The case was settled and the architect agreed to modify his plans for the chain stores going forward to require internal heated roof drains for all stores north of Washington, D.C. Attorney Goodman went the distance, dug deep, and accomplished change that benefitted patrons of the chain store going forward.