CVN screenshot of plaintiff attorney Patrick Kang delivering his closing argument
Las Vegas, NV - A Nevada state court jury has awarded $15 million to a woman who sustained serious leg injuries when she slipped on a spilled drink in a Las Vegas casino, and the full trial was recorded gavel-to-gavel by Courtroom View Network.
Plaintiff Debbie Fenton alleges she developed a chronic debilitating condition called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome after falling at a private event held at The Cosmopolitan Hotel Las Vegas in 2021.
The Cosmopolitan argued the organization that leased the party space was responsible for maintaining it during the event, and that the fall happened just moments after the spill without a reasonable amount of time to clean it up. However the jury rejected those arguments on April 7 and awarded Fenton roughly $1 million in past and future medical expenses and roughly $14 million for past and future pain and suffering.
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While the award is less than the approximately $37 million in total damages Fenton’s attorney Patrick Kang of Ace Law Group asked for during his closing argument, he told CVN after the trial it did surpass a $12 million pre-trial settlement demand rejected by the defense. Kang said the defense made a $2.75 million offer of judgment immediately before the trial began, which the plaintiffs turned down.
Attorneys for the defense did not response to a request for comment from CVN.
Kang said he didn’t have an opportunity to speak with any jurors after the trial, but he suggested their unanimous verdict after only an hour and 15 minutes of deliberations indicated they didn’t get bogged down in liability issues.
“We think that this may have been one of those rare premises cases where the jury had decided liability relatively quickly in our favor,” he posited.
Kang noted that his client suffered long-term, life-changing injuries but seeking tens of millions of dollars in damages in a case like this presents significant challenges.
“As a slip and fall case there is a natural tendency for people to discount these types of cases and the injuries,” he explained.
Kang believed the surveillance video of a hotel security manager reacting to the noise from the dropped glass played a key role in overcoming the defense arguments that responsibility for the fall lay solely with the private party organizers,
“This coupled with the testimony of the corporate representative stating that even looking back at the video he did nothing wrong was the pivotal point at trial that carried the day for liability,” he said.
The four-day trial took place before Judge Eric Johnson.
Fenton was also represented by Christian Smith of Ace Law Group.
The defense was represented by Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP and Bremer Whyte Brown & O'Meara.
The case is captioned Deborah Fenton v. Nevada Property 1 LLC,et al, case number A-23-869317-C in Clark County District Court.
E-mail David Siegel at dsiegel@cvn.com