Hotel Guest Awarded $9.45 Million After Falling Into Drained Courtyard Fountain
After trial: The verdict is on appeal and nothing has been shown paid. The 162nd Judicial District Court signed judgment on the jury's verdict on September 8, 2025; the defendants filed a motion for new trial on October 7, 2025 and a notice of appeal on December 4, 2025. The appeal was transferred from the Fifth Court of Appeals (No. 05-25-01631-CV) to the Seventh Court of Appeals (No. 07-26-00018-CV) on January 14, 2026, where the appellants' brief was filed on June 23, 2026 and the appellees' brief is set for September 2026. The dollar amount of the judgment actually signed, including how the jury's 5 percent apportionment to McClure was applied, is not stated in the public appellate docket, so the $9.45 million verdict figure is the reported one.
A Dallas County jury awarded $9.45 million to James Shelton McClure, 74, after he stepped into an unlit, drained fountain basin in the courtyard of Hotel Crescent Court while walking his dog just after midnight on March 6, 2021. McClure and his wife were staying at the hotel because Winter Storm Uri had knocked out power at their own home. The fall broke his ankle, requiring four surgeries and an eventual total ankle replacement, and aggravated a preexisting neck condition that left him with nerve damage in his dominant hand. After a weeklong trial, the jury found the hotel 95 percent responsible and McClure 5 percent responsible. Tim Newsom of The Law Offices of Frank L. Branson, P.C. led the trial team, with Debbie Dudley Branson and Linda Yee Villa. The trial court signed judgment on the verdict in September 2025, and the hotel operators appealed; the appeal is pending.
What happened
In February 2021, Winter Storm Uri knocked out power across Texas for days, and James Shelton McClure and his wife, Madeline, left their own storm-damaged home in Dallas to stay at Hotel Crescent Court while it was repaired. Just after midnight on March 6, 2021, the couple went out to walk their dog in the hotel's courtyard. McClure, then 74, did not see a fountain basin set flush with the concrete surface. The basin had been drained of water because of the freezing weather, and the courtyard area around it was unlit, with no cones, barriers or signs marking the roughly two-foot drop. He stepped into the empty basin and fell.
The fall broke McClure's ankle so severely that he needed four separate surgeries, ending in a total ankle replacement. The impact also aggravated a neck condition he already had, and he developed nerve damage in his dominant hand as a result. McClure and his wife sued Hotel Crescent Court and related entities in Dallas County, arguing that the hotel had failed to secure or warn guests about a hazard it knew was there once the fountain was drained for winter.
The case, McClure v. Hotel Crescent Court, went to trial in the 162nd Judicial District Court and lasted a week. Jurors heard evidence that the hotel had not met the minimum lighting required by building code in the courtyard and had taken no basic precautions, such as a cone or a rope line, to keep guests away from the drained basin at night. 'Hotel operators failed to provide minimum lighting required by building codes and failed to take basic steps to warn or protect guests from a very real hazard,' lead trial lawyer Tim Newsom of The Law Offices of Frank L. Branson said after the verdict. 'We are pleased that the jury held the hotel accountable for choosing to protect their property over guest safety.'
The jury returned a verdict of $9.45 million for McClure. In apportioning fault, jurors found McClure 5 percent responsible for the fall and the hotel 95 percent responsible. Newsom tried the case alongside Debbie Dudley Branson and Linda Yee Villa.
The verdict has not yet been tested on appeal. The trial court signed a judgment on September 8, 2025. The hotel operators, Merritt Hospitality, LLC and HEI Hospitality, LLC, moved for a new trial in October 2025 and filed a notice of appeal that December. The appeal went first to the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas and was transferred to the Seventh Court of Appeals in Amarillo in January 2026 under the docket equalization system, where it is docketed as No. 07-26-00018-CV. The hotel operators filed their opening brief in June 2026, and the appellate record lists Frank L. Branson and Tim Newsom among the lawyers for the McClures on appeal, along with appellate counsel Jeffrey S. Levinger. Nothing in the public record shows the judgment has been paid.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.The Texas Lawbook, June 6, 2025 (Alexa Shrake): verdict amount, injury facts, 162nd Judicial District Court, 5%/95% fault split, names Tim Newsom as lead trial counsel with Debbie Dudley Branson and Linda Yee Villa, defense counsel Wesley S. Alost, case number DC-22-05954
- 2.The Dallas Morning News, June 9-10, 2025 (Texas Lawbook / Alexa Shrake): confirms verdict amount, incident date of March 6, 2021, injury detail, weeklong trial, fault split
- 3.Texas Seventh Court of Appeals docket, Merritt Hospitality, LLC and HEI Hospitality, LLC v. James Shelton McClure and Madeline Edith Duhaime McClure, No. 07-26-00018-CV (transferred from No. 05-25-01631-CV): judgment signed September 8, 2025, motion for new trial October 7, 2025, notice of appeal December 4, 2025, transfer January 14, 2026, appellants' brief June 23, 2026; lists Frank L. Branson, Tim Newsom, Wendell Phillip Martens and Jeffrey S. Levinger as counsel for the appellees
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