$1.5 Million After a Walmart Patio Chair Collapsed and a Shopper Needed Neck and Back Surgery
After trial: No appeal or further post-trial proceeding has been reported. Payment is not public.
Won by Morgan & Morgan.
A Fayette County jury awarded a 59-year-old man $1.5 million against Walmart and chair manufacturer Adams Manufacturing Corporation after a plastic outdoor chair he sat in at a Lexington Walmart collapsed and he was injured.
What happened
On June 27, 2021, a 59-year-old man sat down in a plastic chair displayed in the outdoor section of a Walmart on Grey Lag Way in Lexington. The chair collapsed under him, and he hit the ground. He felt shooting pain through his neck, side, and leg, and was taken to the emergency room.
The chair had been manufactured by Adams Manufacturing Corporation. His attorneys pursued the case against both Walmart, as the store that sold and displayed the chair, and Adams Manufacturing, as the company that made it, combining a premises liability theory against the retailer with a product liability theory against the manufacturer. His injuries went on to require physical therapy, epidural steroid injections, a lumbar laminectomy, and a two-level fusion surgery in his cervical spine. He told his attorneys the injuries affected his ability to hunt, fish, and spend time with his family.
Walmart and Adams Manufacturing's highest pretrial settlement offer was $215,000. A Fayette County jury instead awarded $1.5 million to cover his medical expenses and pain and suffering.
The man was represented by Morgan and Morgan attorneys Tanner Shultz, Adrian Mendiondo, and Danielle Blandford. His 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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