Hotel Pays $1.2 M for Toilet Injury

Verdicts & Settlements

Posted Sep 4, 2007, 08:02 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss

The Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City has agreed to pay $1.2 million to settle a lawsuit by a woman injured when her hotel room toilet broke away from the wall while she was sitting on it.

The 74-year-old Philadelphia woman had originally demanded a $2 million settlement, the Legal Intelligencer reports.

The plaintiff required surgery after the first fall and she was never able to recover the strength in her left arm, her lawyers contended. As a result, she was unable to catch herself when she fell again less than two years later, according to the woman’s suit.

Before the settlement, the hotel had alleged in a brief that it would have been "damn near impossible" for the 320-pound woman to catch herself in the second fall, even if her arm had not been injured.

"Given plaintiff's stature and complete lack of physical fitness, there is no possible way that the plaintiff could have supported her body weight and prevented herself from falling," the document said.

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Posted by WooWooWoo - 11 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 16 hours, 58 minutes ago

This is truly amazing. Any construct of assumption of the risk, comparative negligence, or foreseeability should have obviated recovery. A person allowing themself to bloat to 320 pounds is not deserving of compensation for the consequences of that decision.
Posted by sdermer - 11 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 15 hours, 12 minutes ago

Sounds like a gross overpayment. What additional facts could have possibly supported this type of settlement? Did the hotel know the toilet was on its last legs? No way a jury would have given this plaintiff that kind of money for an arm injury. No way.
Posted by ThisIsRidiculous - 11 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 15 hours, 2 minutes ago

I am now back in my office after laughing so hard I had to step out. While I agree the hotel should have to pay for the medical bills relating to that particular incident, why on earth is the hotel agreeing to pay a morbidly obese person for being so fat she broke a toilet seat off a wall? This immediately makes me think of the McDonalds coffee woman - while McDonalds should have paid for the skin grafts, why on earth pay her extra for being just plain stupid? This is why I will NEVER EVER practice in personal injury. Until these lawyers stop accepting ridiculous lawsuits, our legal system will remain an embarrassment.
Posted by anon - 11 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 14 hours, 32 minutes ago

The Legal Intelligencer points out that the toilet and hotel bathroom were designed to be handicapped accessible. Also, corporations and hotels may be able to reduce the risk of large settlements by quickly paying medical bills without a fight. When injured persons need to hire lawyers just to get medical bills paid, the damages start to build!
Posted by anon - 11 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 13 hours, 27 minutes ago

In light of the rate of morbid obesity in this country, perhaps we should change the “eggshell skull plaintiff” rule to the “humpty dumpty” rule.
Posted by anon - 11 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 13 hours, 12 minutes ago

The settlement results from fear of a state court judiciary that gave you golf course liability for lightning strikes. NJ judges never met a plaintiff they didn’t protect. Summary judgment? Hah! Tough burden of persuasion? Hah! Welcome to the end of personal responsibility, assumption of risk and contributory negligence, coupled with redistributionist juries and runaway instructions.
Posted by anon - 11 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 13 hours, 1 minute ago

Someone citing to the Stella Liebeck case (McDonalds) is a sure sign of ignorance when phrased as here. Try reading the case just one time, or an authoritative discussion of it if reading the actual case is too burdensome on intellect.
Posted by SoCal - 11 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 12 hours, 38 minutes ago

Maybe like the McDonald’s case, there is a large history of morbidly obese people breaking toilets and injuring themselves at the Taj Mahal, which was repeatedly ignored by Trump? Then, the big fat settlement could have been made to avoid heavy punitive damages at trial …
Posted by Slodo - 11 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 12 hours, 33 minutes ago

I second the comment just below and add that anyone who allows themselves to remain 320 pounds is obviously contributorily negligent. What kind of precedent does this set? Hotels fearing this type of lawsuit will have to install “high capacity” toilets and reinforced hotel furniture. Time for the legal system to instill some personal accountability for people reckless in their personal habits. Bloating to 320 pounds puts a person at myriad risks in daily life.
Posted by anon - 11 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 11 hours, 23 minutes ago

Our office actually had a similar case (no million dollar settlement). I laughed when I first heard about it, but recover was made because of the type of toilet (wallmounted, not the kind secured to the floor) and it was placed in a handicap stall. Toilet tore out of the wall and fell on the client, actually broke his leg and caused nerve damage. Yes the guy was large, but a public toilet really should be designed to for all comers.
Posted by Rolf Asphaug - 11 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 11 hours, 14 minutes ago

"Assumption of the risk”? For sitting on a toilet? Puh-leeze.

It’s obvious what needs to be done here: new government regulations increasing to (at least) 500 lbs. the minimum weight capacity of all public and private toilets. While we’re at it, switch from porcelain to high-tensile steel.

It’s a national scandal that someone weighing a mere 320 pounds could break a toilet seat off a wall. Why, under that standard about half the population of the states of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana is at risk for serious injury each time they use the restroom, according to recent news stories.
Posted by Chris Tamms - 11 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 8 hours, 7 minutes ago

I agree with Anon… the Stella case doesn’t apply here. If there’s one thing that we can draw from that case it’s that the media can blow everything out of proportion and even lawyers (who should be) are not immune from taking a sound bite as gospel truth.
Posted by Legal Eagle - 11 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 7 hours ago

I think Trump should tell his lawyers “YOU’RE FIRED!!!!!!!
Posted by Design For Life - 11 months, 3 weeks, 7 hours, 53 minutes ago

A capacity limit should always be posted for all facilities as a start… it is impossible to imagine what actually occurs in a bath or restroom. Prison toilets are designed to be indestructible and are very ugly and unacceptable in an upscale hotel
Posted by skg - 11 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 13 hours, 23 minutes ago

How heavy are the biggest NFL players? I’m guessing that there are a number in the 250-300 lb range. If so, not everyone who weighs 320 is “morbidly obese.”
Posted by Let's hear the case - 11 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 5 hours, 37 minutes ago

Keep the sound bites rolling. That’s all most intelligent lawyers need to analyze a case…
Posted by FYI - 11 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 13 hours, 53 minutes ago

Answer to #15 SKG - Morbid obesity—sometimes called “clinically severe obesity"—is defined as being 100 lbs. or more over ideal body weight or having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 40 or higher. Not sure how NFL players are brought into this discussion, but just because they weigh 300 lbs, does not mean that the team doc is ignoring the health risks. But as to the woman mentioned in this article, unless she is 12’ tall, I am fairly confident in saying that 320 lbs is over her ideal body weight and that she qualifies as morbidly obese. I would also like to read more facts - really her counsel’s response as to why her weight was not a HUGE factor in the case - or the fall 2 years later - would the outcome of that fall really be different if the NJ fall didn’t occur?
Posted by TXLawyer - 11 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 10 hours, 40 minutes ago

Please don’t compare this to McDonald’s hot coffee. That lady was a passenger in a car that was not moving. McD’s purposefully kept the coffee hot because people kept bringing it back in the early morning because the old coffee tasted bad and making it too hot to drink allowed them to retain profit. McDonald’s lost a prior suit for damages and still wouldn’t bring the temperature down. It was stipulated that the coffee was 25% higher than industry standard. McD’s executives testified horribly at the trial of the older woman, who offered to settle her case for $11,000 in medical bills originally. The jury was infuriated at McD’s. THAT is why I DO practice personal injury law. As to this case, somebody got scared and over paid. It’s not a sign of the system. Someone probably loses their job agreeing to that number.
Posted by Queen of the Taj - 11 months, 2 weeks, 2 days, 12 hours, 12 minutes ago

Who in the world nowadays sits down on a strange toilet anyways? I, myself have stayed at the Taj and am a ‘squatter’ on actually ANY toilet except my own that I clean regularly. I am not a clean freak...but sitting on a strange toilet equates to ‘that guy’ picking toilet paper up off an airport floor. WHO DOES THAT? Even tho I am ‘sure’ the bathrooms are cleaned regularly at the Taj, who really knows? Of course, I am not sure if a person who weighs 320 pounds + could straddle, squat and pee or anything else, but, I am wondering if she just ‘flopped’ down on the toilet without a thought to her fat fanny sitting where 1000’s have sat before her? Next she’ll be joining in all the prior fat fannies that helped contribute to the ‘loosening’ up of the toilet from the wall prior to hers doing the final number. I wonder what room or floor this was on? hahahahahah!!!
Posted by skg - 11 months, 2 weeks, 1 day, 13 hours, 41 minutes ago

The point of mentioning NFL players was to show that not all persons weighing 320 are morbidly obese and that it would be reasonable for one designing and installing toilets to expect that it would eventually be used by a person weighing 320.

Obviously there has to be an upper limit as to what maximum weight should expected. To design for 10,000 lb is obviously ridiculous. 1000 lb is almost certainly too high also. But whether the maximum expectation should be 300, 400, 500, or 600 is certainly debatable in the absence of a statutory or regulatory standard.

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