Missouri Injury Attorney Blog

David Payne Law is being recognized in the Missouri Lawyers Weekly Top Verdicts 2009 with the $2 Million settlement of a complex premises liability case involving traumatic head injuries. David Payne Law & Strong-Garner-Bauer represented the Plaintiff. This case settled for policy limits within 5 months of the date of injury!

A Russian student visiting Branson in the Summer 2008 suffered a severe head injury in a fall off a motel balcony and recently reached a $2 million settlement of his Christian County premises liability case against the motel. Missouri Lawyers Weekly reported Jill Frost, Kansas City attorney for Bahy, confirmed the settlement details but declined further comment.

While working in Branson during the summer of 2008, Naumenko and several other Russian friends had gathered at the Queen Anne II Motel on Aug. 30, 2008, to celebrate the end of the summer. Naumenko was leaning against the outside walkway railing on the second floor of the motel and without warning the railing collapsed, causing Naumenko to fall about 20 feet to the parking lot below.

Naumenko suffered a serious head injury (traumatic head injury) and was life-flighted to St. John’s Hospital, Springfield. After more than 100 days in the hospital and multiple surgeries — including placement of intracranial pressure monitors, an emergent bifrontal decompressive craniectomy and a bifrontal cranial defect reconstruction — Naumenko was able to return to Russia about four months after the fall.

Police photographs of the railing taken the night of the fall showed it was not bolted to the adjacent support posts.

Plaintiff’s counsel also learned there was a foreclosure action on the motel pending in Taney County between defendants Berag Singh Bahy and Queen Anne Hospitality Corp. The Taney County court file contained a copy of the purchase agreement between the two defendants entered in 2006. Oh, how rich this purchase agreement was for the plaintiff's case on linking liability to both Bahy and Queen Anne.

The plaintiff asserted that an addendum to the purchase agreement showed both defendants had known the railing was unsecured and unsafe for almost two years before Naumenko’s fall, but neither defendant had ever fixed it. "It appears the defendants had been fighting over who should fix the railing and do other needed repairs. Neither defendants' pride seemingly would allow them to fix this railing...it would have taken a few minutes and a $2 bolt!"After identifying the defendants’ insurance information during initial discovery, plaintiff issued a policy limit demand, left open for 30 days. The defendants didn't let the 30 days pass before tending policy limits. The parties settled for the defendants’ combined policy limits of $2 million.