OAKLAND JURY AWARDS $668,000 TO FORMER LANEY COLLEGE DEAN FOR NEGLIGENCE BY SUTTER / ALTA BATES SUMMIT MEDICAL CENTER
Oakland, CA – An Oakland jury awarded $668,000 to Ray Richardson, a 74 year old former Laney College Dean of Ethnic Studies and Vietnam veteran, who tripped over a large crack in the concrete right outside Sutter / Alta Bates at 3100 Telegraph Avenue in Oakland. The sidewalk had not been repaired since 1977.
Richardson suffered severe and permanent shoulder injuries which will require two surgeries.
Sutter claimed that the crack in the sidewalk was “trivial” and did not warrant repairing. Four years after the fall, the sidewalk remains unrepaired.
Richardson claimed that the gap was large enough to catch the wheel of his walker that he was using at the time, causing him to tip over, land on his shoulder and suffer a complete shoulder tear.
Richardson had gone to Sutter / Alta Bates Summit Medical Center following a stroke he had suffered the week before. As he exited the Sutter facility, one of his walker wheels caught and got stuck in the gap/crack. According to Richardson’s lawyer, Ian Zimmerman, the sidewalk was negligently maintained and was especially dangerous considering that it existed at the “very entrance way to a medical facility.”
The jury deliberated over the long Independence Day weekend. “They took a completely independent human being and made him dependent for the rest of his life,” claimed Richardson’s attorney.