Our VerdictsMr. Srodulski’s Directed Verdict in a Snow Plowing Case

Mr. Srodulski defended a snow plower company in a personal injury lawsuit filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County. The case was tried before Judge Bartkowicz. The plaintiff filed suit alleging that Mr. Srodulski’s client had failed to properly remove snow from her condominium’s parking lot. She fell while walking across the parking lot injuring her wrist. The wrist injury required surgery to install hardware to give her partial function of wrist. She lost some movement of her wrist permanently. Despite her injury, the Plaintiff was less than honest about how and where she fell. Mr. Srodulski’s cross examination of her was devastating. Under his questioning, Mr. Srodulski forced the plaintiff to admit she fell in an area over which his client was not obliged to plow. Accordingly, Mr. Srodulski established that her fall too place in an area where his client had no legal and no contractual obligation to plow. Mr. Srodulski then urged the court to take the case from the jury and dismiss his client from the case. Despite counsel for plaintiff’s pleas that his client’s injury for which he sought $800,000 was entitled to her day in court, Judge Bartkowicz took the rare step of throwing the case out of court against Mr. Srodulski’s client holding that the plaintiff had utterly failed to establish any factual or legal reason to let the case proceed. The plaintiff has filed no appeal and the case has been terminated.