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24 ¦ AUGUST 10, 2020 VERDICTS & SETTLE MENTS

How Stamford Lawyer Clinched
$2M Slip-and-Fall Settlement

By Robert Storace

Plaintiffs attorney Stewart Casper’s practice
deals almost exclusively with traumatic brain
injuries, and he knew he had a good case in the
matter of Anne McDonald, who suffered a traumat-
ic brain injury after a fall at the Noah Webster House
Inc. museum in West Hartford.
The problems, though, were twofold: liability and
getting experts to prove the severity of McDonald’s
injuries.
“There was potential liability because no one
saw the incident, and she had no memory of the
incident,” said Casper of Casper & de Toledo in
Stamford. The liability issue, Casper said Friday,
was resolved because McDonald’s co-workers, even
though they did not witness the incident, were with
her on the tour. Casper was able to put the pieces
together through their testimony, and demonstrate
just how unsafe the stairway to the museum attic
had been.
McDonald, a 50-year-old Massachusetts resident,
was on a tour of the museum with colleagues from
the Merriam-Webster dictionary company when
the incident occurred almost four years ago. A law-
suit was filed in April 2018 in Hartford Superior Anne McDonald fell down these stairs at the Noah
Court. Webster House in West Hartford in 2016 during a tour
of the museum. She recently settled the case for $2

McDonald, Casper said, fell “from the stairway million. Courtesy photo

and onto the hard wooden floor. She struck the back Then, Casper said, was the issue of medical experts.
of her head. This was an accident waiting to happen. “Connecticut and western Massachusetts, where
The stairway going into the attic was poorly lit and my client lives, has a shallow bench of experts in
the stairs were antiquated and there was no guardrail providing treatment for TBI,” Casper said. “Getting
to hang onto. There was really no other explanation her in the hands of a physician who really knows
for the incident.” what they are doing and what to look for was key.”
The case settled for the museum’s insurance policy Through his work for other clients with traumatic
limit of $2 million on July 6. brain injury, Casper said he put his client in touch

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