Murphy v. 1st Lake Properties, Inc.

116 So. 3d 964, 12 La.App. 5 Cir. 649, 2013 WL 2249223, 2013 La. App. LEXIS 1023
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedMay 23, 2013
DocketNo. 12-CA-649
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 116 So. 3d 964 (Murphy v. 1st Lake Properties, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Murphy v. 1st Lake Properties, Inc., 116 So. 3d 964, 12 La.App. 5 Cir. 649, 2013 WL 2249223, 2013 La. App. LEXIS 1023 (La. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

JUDE G. GRAVOIS, Judge.

12PIaintiff, Bobbie Christine Murphy, tripped and fell on an exterior staircase at the “Frenchmen’s Creek” apartment complex in Metairie, Louisiana, in May of 2005, sustaining serious injuries to her right ankle. She sued the apartment complex builder/owner, 1st Lake Properties, Inc., Favrot & Shane Properties, and Lake Development Construction, Inc.1 (collectively “F & S”), alleging that the stairs were defective in that the steps were irregularly and improperly spaced and out of compliance with applicable building codes, thus creating a hazard to all users of the stairway. G. Wilson Construction Company, Inc. (“Wilson”), the construction firm who had previously removed and replaced the treads of the stairs in question in 2003, was added as a defendant in a supplemental and amending petition.

In June of 2011, after a three-day jury trial, a verdict was returned in favor of defendants, finding that the stairs were not defective at the time of plaintiffs |saccident.2 Plaintiff filed a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict and alternatively for- a new trial, which was denied. This appeal followed.

On appeal, plaintiff asserts various assignments of error.3 First, in Part I of her brief, plaintiff argues that the evidence clearly showed that the staircase in question was defective due to the negligence of F & S, and further that the opinion of plaintiffs expert witness, an architect, that the stairs were defective, was unopposed. Accordingly, she argues, the jury erred in finding that the staircase was not defective and that F & S was not liable for plaintiffs injury claims.

In Part II of her brief, plaintiff argues various trial court errors that she claims entitles her to a de novo review of the evidence by this Court. First, plaintiff argues that twelve different exhibits, used to impeach the testimony of plaintiffs witness, Gregory Avery, were improperly admitted. Second, plaintiff argues that the trial court improperly denied her the right to call two witnesses whom she asserts were listed on her pretrial order. Third, plaintiff argues that the trial court improperly heard and granted defendants’ motions in limine prior to trial, limiting plaintiffs introduction of certain medical evidence and testimony. Fourth, plaintiff argues that the trial court improperly [968]*968failed to control defendants’ closing arguments, in which defense counsel allegedly made prejudicial and inflammatory comments.4

In Part III of her brief, plaintiff argues that defendants improperly presented various non-certified exhibits. She also argues that defendants improperly [/‘bifurcated” Exhibit D-l, the F & S Incident Report, separating and failing to introduce the photographs allegedly associated with the report. She further argues that Exhibit D-14, a previous lawsuit allegedly filed by plaintiff concerning another accident, was also improperly introduced.

In her brief, plaintiff also argues that the trial court erred in granting defendants’ motion in limine denying her request to present evidence that she suffered from a metal allergy occasioned by the hardware in her ankle.5 This argument will be addressed in Part IV of this opinion.

For the following reasons, finding no merit to any of plaintiffs arguments, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

FACTS

On May 9, 2005, plaintiff, Bobbie Christine Murphy, visited a friend, Judy Norris, at the Frenchmen’s Creek apartment complex in Metairie, Louisiana. Ms. Norris lived on the third floor of Building 4. Plaintiff left Ms. Norris’s apartment on the third floor and then tripped and fell as she descended the exterior staircase between the third and second floors. Ms. Norris apparently witnessed plaintiffs fall. At the time, plaintiff was wearing wedge-type flip-flops, approximately 2½ inches in height. She was also carrying her purse, a laptop computer, and a container of cheesecake slices Ms. Norris had given her.

Plaintiff was treated that evening for injuries received in her fall at East Jefferson After Hours Clinic, an urgent care facility in Metairie, Louisiana. She presented the next day to Lakeview Regional Hospital’s emergency room in Covington. She was admitted with a broken ankle. Surgery was performed on her ankle, with a plate and screws being inserted to stabilize the joint. Plaintiff | ^thereafter filed this lawsuit against defendants, alleging that the staircase was defective, which she alleged was the proximate cause of her accident.

PART I: Liability of F & S

In the first section of her brief, plaintiff argues that the jury erred in its finding of fact that the staircase in question was not defective.

The apartment complex consisted of several three-story buildings with apartments on each floor that were accessed by exteri- or staircases, there being no elevators in the complex. The exterior staircase near Ms. Norris’s apartment, similar in structure to the ones serving the other buildings, consisted of a staircase leading down from the third floor landing to an interim landing between the third and second floors, with a second staircase then descending from the interim landing to the second floor landing. Plaintiff and Mr. Avery, her flaneé of eleven years and sometimes attorney of record in this case, maintained that plaintiff tripped after leaving the interim landing and fell to the [969]*969second floor landing. The F & S Incident Report, however, describes plaintiff as having fallen from the third floor landing to the interim landing, as per information supplied by Ms. Norris, apparently the only eyewitness to the accident.

The record shows that in July of 2003, the owners of the Frenchmen’s Creek apartment complex sought bids from carpentry contractors, as part of its ongoing building maintenance program, to remove and replace the wooden treads of the complex’s exterior staircases with concrete ones. Defendant Wilson was awarded the contract. F & S supplied all of the materials for the job. Because the job did not include rebuilding the stairs, but merely involved replacing the worn wooden treads with concrete ones, which were more durable, Wilson was not given any blueprints or other designs to follow. Wilson’s president, Mr. Glenn Wilson, testified that he placed the new concrete treads in exactly the same locations where Rthe wooden treads had been placed when the complex was built in 1976, but hung new brackets to hold the new concrete treads up because the concrete treads were thicker than the wooden treads. He was not asked to alter the stairs in any other way or to address any building code issues if found. Mr. Wilson admitted that some of the staircases he worked on in the complex appeared to be out of compliance with applicable building codes in that there were differences between the heights of the stair risers (the distance between the steps) in excess of what applicable codes allowed.

Mr. Victor Bedikian, who was accepted by the court as an expert in architecture, codes, and standards, testified that on April 17, 2006, he performed an inspection of the staircase leading to Ms. Norris’s apartment. He was told by Mr. Avery6 that the accident occurred at the interim landing between the third and second floors as plaintiff descended from the interim landing to the second floor landing.

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Bluebook (online)
116 So. 3d 964, 12 La.App. 5 Cir. 649, 2013 WL 2249223, 2013 La. App. LEXIS 1023, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/murphy-v-1st-lake-properties-inc-lactapp-2013.