$285KIcy walkway at apartment complex, fractured wrist

Our client fell on a sheet of ice on the walkway outside her apartment building and sustained a comminuted distal radius fracture requiring plate fixation. She is a dental hygienist and was out of work for five months.

The complex argued that ice in a Colorado winter is an open and obvious condition that a resident must simply navigate.

The ice was not weather. Maintenance tickets showed a downspout that had been discharging across the walkway since a gutter repair the previous autumn, and three residents had reported the resulting refreeze.

We paired those tickets with National Weather Service data showing no precipitation in the six days before the fall, which meant the ice could only have come from the downspout. The complex refused to move past a nuisance offer, so we tried the case.

The jury found the complex 90 percent at fault and returned $285K, reduced to account for the comparative share attributed to our client.

She has returned to practice with some residual stiffness. The award covered her surgery, her hardware removal, and the wages lost across five months.