Oklahoma Injury Lawyer Blog

Shirley Rice was injured on two separate occasions in 2010 when she tripped and fell on the cracks in a sidewalk. Not long after, she filed suit. According to a recent article, Rice was given $7,500 to settle her claim against the city of Saginaw.

Rice initially filed her complaint on March 15, 2013. The complaint stated that, "As a result of a defect in the sidewalk," Rice suffered serious injuries. The complaint states that the city is to blame for her injuries because it failed to exercise proper care and maintenance on the portion of the sidewalk which she fell on.

Rice had initially asked for a settlement of $25,000. Court records indicate that there was a case evaluation held on February 7, 2013. Shortly thereafter, attorneys for the city of Saginaw approved a settlement amount of $7,500 for Rice. In exchange for that amount, Rice agreed to drop the lawsuit.

This is not the first premises liability lawsuit that Rice has filed. Previously, she filed suit against the Michigan and United States Department of Transportation over weed cutting in her neighborhood. In that lawsuit, Rice claimed that weed cutting is ignored in neighborhoods that have a higher concentration of black residents than white residents. Rice has filed several other, similar lawsuits.

Recently, the Oklahoma Senate Judiciary Committee approved Oklahoma Senate Bill 931, which would limit premises liability for agritourism professionals within Oklahoma. The bill was sponsored by Sen. Ron Justice and Rep. Scott Biggs, both of whom are Oklahoma agritourism professionals.

Under the bill, agritourism professionals such as Justice and Biggs could not be held liable if and when participants in their services suffer from injury or death based on the inherent risks of such activities. In order to secure this protection, agritourism professionals will have to prominently post warnings on their premises.

According to Justice, "Oklahoma farmers and ranchers offer many agritourism activities like petting farms, horse riding, corn mazes and hay rides that families enjoy. Unfortunately, there are some inherent risks with such activities but being that people willingly participate in them knowing the risks, they shouldn't be allowed to sue the owner if something happens."

Agritourism activities are those that occur on a farm or ranch, and allow the public to view or participate in agricultural activities such as farming and ranching. Under the bill, if a facility owner is sued based on an agritourism injury or death, assumption of risk will be available as an affirmative defense to the professional.

This sounds like a good idea at first, but the reality is that this already happens for inherent risks (and thus preventing any recovery to sue). There's an "assumption of risk" for just about any activity. Correctly, consumers can sue for their injuries that take place outside the scope of the general risks.

CNN, and many other news sources, are reporting that the family of the man trampled to death on "Black Friday" is suing Wal-Mart. 

The suit was filed yesterday, just 5 days after the tragic event.  I don't know the New York lawyer involved in the lawsuit, or his rationale for filing suit now, but why the hurry?  Perhaps this puts more pressure on Wal-mart, but surely there hasn't been any attempt to settle the case.  All of the facts are likely not even known.  What about the crazy "shoppers" that were involved in the man's death?  The lawyer is certainly getting free publicity for filing suit now though.