Woman Receives Millions From Slip & Fall Injury At Public Storage

On July 11, following a four-day trial, a jury in Middlesex County, N.J., awarded $2.5 million to Jane Bishop, a woman who injured her left arm from falling at a Public Storage facility in Monmouth Junction, N.J. 

Rejecting the defense’s suggestion that Bishop, 66, was prone to falling, the jury unanimously ruled that negligence by Public Storage was the proximate cause of her injuries. They awarded her $2.5 million for past, present, and future pain and suffering and attributed 100 percent of the damages to Public Storage. 

Bishop broke her left elbow on Jan. 9, 2020, when she fell at the entranceway to the facility’s office. An engineering expert who testified at the trial said the step leading to the entrance was in disrepair, wasn’t up to code, and had multiple defects, which caused her foot to get caught. Following the fall, Bishop, who’s left-handed, had her left elbow joint surgically replaced and underwent two carpal tunnel surgeries to alleviate swelling from the initial, injury-related surgery.

According to Bishop’s attorney, Public Storage only offered a “nuisance value” settlement before the trial. At trial, the company took the position that it was not obligated to make repairs to the entrance, he said. An employee said in a deposition that the staff walk around the facility every day to look for trip hazards, and the company said Bishop had fallen at the site before that incident.

Public Storage was represented by Colin Hackett of Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith in Newark, N.J.