$2.475 Million
In the dark of night, 72-year-old Nancy Bayard, while a guest in her daughter’s Southport home, had to use the bathroom. But there was no light that would work to illuminate a darkened hallway where the bathroom was located, next to a darkened old-fashioned stairway. Nancy missed the bathroom door and fell down the stairs, sustaining a subdural hematoma, an extensive contusion of the left temporal lobe of her brain, a subarachnoid hemorrhage, intraventricular hemorrhages, and an uncal herniation in her brain. She also suffered a fracture of her clavicle, a compound fracture of her wrist, six rib fractures, and several other injuries. Homeowners’ insurance made it possible to pursue compensation, even though the injuries were sustained in her daughter’s home. A ten-dollar night light would have averted the tragedy that left an independent and active woman requiring round the clock supervision. However, because the fall was unwitnessed, it was up to Stewart Casper, a lawyer with extensive experience in traumatic brain injury cases, to demonstrate to a jury that there was no other plausible explanation for his client’s fall. Evidence was marshaled, demonstrating just that. Unfortunately, two insurance companies were more interested in saving money than they were in seeing a fair result, thus necessitating a two and one-half week trial. The lawyers from Casper & de Toledo presented testimony from a neuroradiologist, the neurosurgeon who performed two craniotomies, a physiatrist, a neuropsychologist, a certified life care planner, a human factors expert, and a professional photographer, and used numerous demonstrative aides to convince the jury of the merits of Ms. Bayard’s claim.
