Kendzior - Floored!: real-life stories from a slip and fall expert witness

Floored!

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham Boulder New York London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kendzior, Russell J., author.

Title: Floored! : real-life stories from a slip and fall expert witness / Russell J. Kendzior.

Description: Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, [2017]

Identifiers: LCCN 2017018422| ISBN 9781442271692 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781442271708 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Falls (Accidents)

Classification: LCC RD93 .K47 2017 | DDC 617.1dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017018422

TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to the blue-collar men who served as my role models, helped shape my life, and taught me right from wrong. My father, Joe; my uncle, Ray; and my father-in-law, John. Three men from the greatest generation.

Every time I am asked, So what do you do? I reply, I am a safety expert and expert witness in cases involving a slip, trip, and fall, to which they usually reply, Really? Slips and falls? Arent those just scams staged by con artists? Welcome to my world. A world of misunderstanding and mischaracterization of slip, trip, and fall victims. I dont think there is any category of safety whose victims are demonized more than that of slips, trips, and falls.

The question has now turned into a conversation where I am asked to describe a typical case that I have worked on. Well, there was a case where while attending her husbands funeral, a woman slipped and fell, striking her head on her husbands casket (chapter 3) or the case where a young boy tripped and fell while playing laser tag and contracted a flesh-eating bacteria (chapter 2), to which they usually respond by saying, Wow! I never realized people can really get hurt by a slip and fall.

For the past twenty-plus years I have been taking cases as an expert witness. It has been my experience that very few slip, trip, and fall lawsuits are filed by fraudulent scam artists seeking to make a fast buck but are rather just regular folks like you who get seriously hurt and usually just want to get their medical bills paid.

Much of the distortion is generated by the television media, who sensationalizes fraudulent scam artists who are often caught on surveillance video but rarely will broadcast a story on legitimate slips, trips, and falls. Its estimated that approximately 3 percent of all slip, trip, and fall claims are fraudulent, leaving the remaining 97 percent as legitimate. Therefore, for every three slip-and-fall con artists caught on store surveillance video there are 97 legitimate slips and falls recorded. Sadly, they dont get any airtime. This distortion of reality is in part what this book seeks to correct.

To suggest that all slip, trip, and fall lawsuits are frivolous is untrue, and to suggest that people should simply watch where theyre walking is a gross overexaggeration of the underlying and serious problem. Denying that wet floors contribute to slips and falls is like saying that cigarette use does not contribute to lung cancer. Like the tobacco industry, who for decades denied the link between cigarette use and cancer and said that smokers can stop smoking anytime they want, the floor covering industry has adopted the same playbook of denying that their products contribute to slips and falls and usually blame the victim for their fall. Questions like What type of shoes were you wearing? and Where were you looking at the time you fell? are commonly asked of plaintiffs for the purpose of transferring responsibility and liability. Floor covering manufacturers will also blame their commercial customers by asking, What floor cleaner do you use? therefore suggesting that everyone is to blame except the flooring manufacturer. The cost of slips, trips, and falls is huge, topping an estimated $100 billion each year, and passing the buck hasnt helped. The problem isnt just floor covering manufacturers but property owners who simply dont care. When asked, Do you have many slip-and-fall claims? many business owners will respond by saying, Sure, thats why we have insurance. They see slip-and-fall claims like they do their electric bill. A cost of doing business that they have little control over and in turn pass along to their customers via the products they sell.

I once asked a grocery store executive what their slip-and-fall prevention strategy was, whereby he replied, We simply raise the cost of bananas and blame the problem of frivolous lawsuits on the trial attorneys (chapter 43). To him the problem was lawyers filing lawsuits and not his stores ongoing hazardous conditions that lead to his customers becoming injured. This mindset is in many ways the real problem and explains why slip, trip, and fall injuries and lawsuits continue to rise.

Since my first retention in 1997 I have worked on more than 750 slip, trip, and fall lawsuits, representing both plaintiffs and defendants, and receive calls almost every day from attorneys across the country who are seeking to retain an expert witness. Sadly, in my line of work there are no winners, just losers. For plaintiffs who are often seriously injured there is no sum of money that can make them whole again, and for the defendant the rising costs of litigation can break their bottom line and dramatically increase their insurance rates.

Rarely have I been presented a case of fraud, and for good reason. Most personal injury plaintiff attorneys will take cases on a contingency basis whereby they must front the cost of litigation and dont want to waste their time and money on a weak case. Slip, trip, and fall lawsuits are hard for plaintiffs to win; just ask any plaintiff attorney. Thats not to say that they are not winnable, just that the burden is high and most attorneys simply do not want to take the financial risk.