$1.84 Million After a Man Slipped on a Restroom Puddle at Kentucky Oaks Mall and Needed Two Spine Fusions
After trial: No appeal or further post-trial proceeding has been reported. Payment is not public.
Won by Morgan & Morgan.
A McCracken County jury awarded a 64-year-old man $1,837,756.05 after he slipped on a puddle in a restroom at Kentucky Oaks Mall in Paducah and fractured himself onto the floor, requiring both lumbar and cervical spine fusion surgeries.
What happened
On January 14, 2020, a 64-year-old man was using a restroom at Kentucky Oaks Mall in Paducah when he slipped on a puddle of water and fell forward, striking his face on the floor. He suffered a concussion along with neck and back injuries that later required both a lumbar spine fusion and a cervical spine fusion.
His attorneys argued that mall management had not followed its own corporate cleaning protocol: the restroom checklists meant to document how often the floors were inspected and mopped had not been kept up, and the puddle had been allowed to sit long enough to become a hazard. Kentucky Oaks Mall's highest pretrial settlement offer was $150,000, and at trial its defense asked the jury to award nothing. The jury instead returned a verdict of $1,837,756.05 on February 6, 2025, covering the man's medical expenses and pain and suffering.
The plaintiff was represented by Morgan & Morgan attorneys Andrew AsBridge, Kelli Lester, Lauren Marley, and Dion Moorman. The plaintiff's name was not published in news coverage of the verdict.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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