May, 2021 – Ana Rita Ferreira and Amos Gern settled a suit against a Family Dollar Store location in Clifton for a 46-year old dental hygienist, for $100,000. Our client slipped on a hanger negligently left lying in an aisle, and the store was shown to have inadequate maintenance procedures in its operation. She sustained a displaced spiral fracture of the ring finger metacarpal with significant shortening, requiring an open reduction internal fixation (ORIF) surgery to align the fracture, with placement of a plate and screws in her left hand. She was disabled for over 2 months, and received State Disability benefits. The surgical procedure caused a significant scarring deformity to the hand, and left our client with restriction of motion in the hand, limiting her duties at work. A comprehensive deposition of the store manager helped establish the inadequacy of store procedures to address its duties to shoppers, and revealed that a video recording of the fall was no longer available, in spite of a prior spoliation notice to the chain.
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