A Superior Court jury has awarded $341,000 to Southington contractor Stefan Gardner, who fractured his ankle after falling down a defective step in a basement in a vacant Bristol house he was inspecting.

The jury found the building's owners—a bank and two other entities—negligent. It also awarded Gardner's wife $50,000 for loss of consortium, in addition to the six-figure award to her husband.

The injury occurred in a vacant house that CIT Bank N.A. took possession of after its tenant died in October 2015. The house has been vacant for nearly a year when in September 2016, Gardner, an independent contractor with Twenty Two Hill LLC, was asked to inspect it. While on that inspection, Gardner, 50, descended the stairwell that leads to the basement and fell four feet, due to a defective step, according to his amended lawsuit filed in November 2017.