Hozey v. AMC

$3.15M Verdict

Date of Verdict: Jan. 28.

Court and Case No.: C.P. Philadelphia No. 170801401.

Judge: Sean Kennedy.

Type of Action: Premises liability, slip and fall.

Injuries: Hip fracture.

Plaintiffs Counsel: Franklin Strokoff, The Rothenberg Law Firm, Philadelphia.

Defense Counsel: Ralph Luongo, Kennedys Law; Thomas Gregory, O'Connor Kimball.

Comment:

A Philadelphia jury has awarded nearly $3.15 million to an elderly woman who fractured her hip while trying to find seats in an AMC movie theater in Montgomery County.

The jury handed up the verdict Tuesday after a five-day trial before Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Sean Kennedy. Despite arguments that the 78-year-old plaintiff was comparatively negligent, the jury found the theater company to be 100% at fault for the incident.

"After a nearly two-and-a-half-year battle in the court system, justice was finally served for my client, who suffers and continues to suffer as a result of AMC's negligent conduct," attorney Franklin Strokoff of The Rothenberg Law Firm said. Strokoff represented plaintiff Mary Hozey.

According to Hozey's pretrial memo, on March 1, 2016, Hozey surprised her 83-year-old sister, who lived in an assisted living community, by taking her to lunch and a movie at the AMC theater in Plymouth Meeting. Since her sister uses a walker, Hozey selected seats reserved for persons with disabilities when purchasing the tickets, the memo said. The memo said the women entered the theater after the movie had started, and Hozey told her sister to wait at the landing while she looked for the assigned seats.

The memo said that, as Hozey was looking for a seat, she attempted to walk forward, but stepped into nothing and then fell onto her left side. According to the memo, Hozey had not seen the "unmarked, unlit step" until after she fell and the lights came up.

According to the memo, while she waited for EMS, an AMC employee told Hozey that people had previously fallen on that step, and one of the theater guests said that six people had previously fallen in the same location. The memo said another woman had also fallen in the same spot two days before Hozey's fall.

"Outrageously, absolutely no action was taken between the time of Gertrude Palicki's fall and Ms. Hozey's fall two days later," the memo said.

The memo also said that AMC violated its own safety policies and failed to take a photo of the area where the fall occurred until three days after the incident. According to the memo, the lights near where Hozey fell were not working in the photograph.

In its pretrial memo, AMC contended that Hozey had previously been in the same auditorium, and should have been aware of the step, but had not been paying attention before she fell. The company also said there had not been any concerns about the step, and the area was properly illuminated from above and with white plastic lighting strips.

AMC also brought Lickel Architecture into the case. The company had designed the theater when it underwent a renovation in 2015.

In its pretrial memo, Lickel argued that Hozey was comparatively negligent, and that the theater is designed nearly identically to all other AMC theaters throughout the country, which meet all building codes and standards under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

After the fall, Hozey was taken to Einstein Montgomery Hospital, where she was diagnosed with a displaced hip fracture. She underwent surgery and was kept in the hospital for five days, but she subsequently underwent five surgeries and seven hospitalizations as a result of the broken hip, the memo said.

The memo also said that, Hozey, a widow, had undergone gastric bypass surgery in 2013, and had since become active in the lives of her children and grandchildren, including traveling to Alaska in 2015.

According to the memos, the plaintiff demanded $3.9 million, and AMC did not make any offers. AMC's memo also noted it was self-insured up to $1 million, and had a $4 million excess policy with ACE American Insurance.

According to Strokoff, the jury deliberated for about an hour before delivering its verdict.

AMC was represented by Ralph Luongo of Kennedys Law, and O'Connor Kimball lawyer Thomas Gregory represented Lickel.

—Max Mitchell, of the Law Weekly