In a case heard in Jackson County, Missouri, our client, a defendant elevator service company, faced allegations from a plaintiff who claimed she was injured after the elevator she was riding abruptly stopped due to an electrical short from a defective cable. Our client had been recently hired to perform maintenance and modernization on the building’s elevators. The plaintiff also sued the prior elevator maintenance company and the building’s property manager/owner.
Throughout the case, the plaintiff was claiming millions of dollars in damages. All four parties filed for summary judgment. Our motion was supported by admissions from the plaintiff’s expert, who conceded during deposition that our client had no actual notice of any issues with the component in question before the incident.
In July, after hearing oral arguments in June, the judge granted our summary judgment motion and denied the others. The court concluded that no facts in the record supported a finding that our client could have caused or reasonably foreseen the incident.