Rare $2M trip-and-fall verdict awarded to senior woman hurt in Lexington County accident

A Lexington County resident recently was awarded $2 million by a jury after offering to settle for less than 10% of that amount following a trip-and-fall accident at a county-managed facility.

Donna Roland sued Lexington County in October of 2020 after she says she tripped and fell while stepping down from a curb leaving the Lexington County Auxiliary Administration building, located at 605 West Main St. She visited the location to drop off an absentee ballot as a means of taking safety precautions while voting during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a result of the fall, Roland, who was 60 years old at the time, broke her arm in two places and had to undergo surgery 10 days later, according to Robert Goings, Roland’s lawyer.

Roland incurred $92,000 in medical bills and offered to settle with the county for $150,000, but Lexington County declined that offer.

Two-and-half years after the fall, a three-day trial ensued in a Lexington County court. And in less than 25 minutes on Wednesday, a unanimous $2 million verdict was announced in Roland’s favor. Judge Walton McLeod presided over the trial.

It was first time in Goings’ 15-year career that he’s seen a verdict so large in a county that’s historically conservative and reluctant to award such large monetary verdicts.

“I think this verdict reflects that Lexington County citizens are fed up with Lexington County government taking their tax dollars and doing nothing,” Goings said. “And the question is how many more citizens have to fall and get severely hurt before the county does the right thing and fix the sidewalk?”

Goings said Roland fell because of a channel or gap — about 3 inches wide and a half-inch deep — between the sidewalk and curb in front of the Lexington County Auxiliary Administrative building. Unaware of the defect, Goings said his client’s foot got caught in the gap as she was leaving the sidewalk and attempting to step down from the curb.

In their reply to the suit, lawyers for Lexington County argued, among other things, they lacked notice of the sidewalk’s condition because there hadn’t been a reported fall or complaint about the sidewalk area where Roland fell in the 19 years since the county bought the building in 2001 before Roland’s 2020 fall.

Goings, however, argued — and the jury agreed — that just because no one had fallen or complained about the sidewalk’s condition prior to Roland, it didn’t excuse the county of notice. But even if it had, the county’s risk manager, Sarah Lind, ultimately testified in a deposition that the county was in fact aware of the defect and that repairs were a “top priority,” according to Goings.

Lind “said it was a top priority and that they were going to get the (sidewalk) fixed,” Goings said. “Guess what? They never fixed it. And the testimony was that it would only take one or two bags of concrete at about $15 a bag to fix this.”

In his closing arguments, Goings delivered two 50 pound bags of concrete to the defense, a move he said resonated with the jury.

Efforts by The State to reach lawyers for Lexington County were unsuccessful.