Davanand Shiwgobin, who fell on ice accumulation on a driveway on his girlfriend's property, recently settled the case for $250,000.

When plaintiff Davanand Shiwgobin sued his girlfriend for falling on accumulated ice on her driveway, the defense team thought the fix was in.

Defense counsel took the view, according to plaintiffs counsel Frank Bartlett, that Shiwgobin and then-girlfriend Nirmala Budhai had colluded to fake the slip and fall and have it taped to collect on the insurance policy.

So Bartlett, owner of the Bartlett Legal Group in Cheshire, worked to prove otherwise. He built a case to show Shiwgobin had, in fact, fallen and injured himself.

"Initially, I thought this would be your typical open-and-shut, slip-and-fall case," Bartlett said Wednesday. "The defense made the claim that the girlfriend had just put in the surveillance camera … to capture the fall."

But Bartlett was ready to show that Budhai's surveillance video, which captured the fall, had been installed years earlier.

Building the case

Shiwgobin fell in February 2018, according to the January 2019 lawsuit filed in New Britain Superior Court. Budhai had asked him to take out the trash. When he fell, he injured his lower back, left leg and left foot, the lawsuit says.

The case settled for $250,000 with Budhai's homeowner's policy, and Bartlett has a case pending against the two owners of the property.

The attorney said he needed documentation to prove there was no collusion—lots of documentation.

"There were questions from the defense on whether or not the plaintiff had lived with the defendant. He did not," Bartlett said. "So we went to get the records from the Department of Motor Vehicles and bank records to show he owned a house in Waterbury. We also obtained the services of a meteorologist, who said based on a review of weather records, that the ice had existed in the driveway for at least 24 to 48 hours before the fall. There was a lot of leg work we did to dispel the collusion claims."

The defense team had offered $50,000 to settle the matter; Bartlett said no. The defense, though, after faced with the bank and DMV records and, especially the weather records, did agree to pay $250,000 of the $300,000 policy limit, Bartlett said.

Shiwgobin, 51, had to leave his job working for a Macy's distribution center in Cheshire after the fall, Bartlett said. He incurred about $88,000 in medical expenses.

Bartlett said his client had surgery to his back, which, he said, left Shiwgobin with pain and decreased range of motion. Shiwgobin, Bartlett said, also has a condition known as "drop foot" because of the fall.

Representing CSAA Affinity Insurance Co., Budhai's insurance carrier, were Joseph Andriola and Sean Caruthers, both with Neubert, Pepe & Monteith in New Haven. Neither attorney responded to a request for comment Wednesday.

But in court pleadings, the defense put the blame on the plaintiff. They alleged Shiwgobin failed to "keep and maintain a reasonable and proper lookout" and "failed to make reasonable and proper use of his senses and faculties."

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