The owner and operators of a parking garage in Austin, Texas have been hit with a lawsuit after a woman’s car fell seven stories.
The lawsuit alleges that Christi B. narrowly escaped death in the plunge her car took to the ground, but still suffered severe personal injuries including a broken back, broken sternum, broken ribs, broken elbow, broken ankle. The parking garage accident was caused by loose cable wires, alleges the lawsuit, that didn’t meet safety codes.
According to the lawsuit, the car hit another building and then smashed on the pavement below. The parking garage accident became an internet sensation, states the lawsuit.
The plaintiff is seeking $1 million in damages. Christi told Spectrum News that although her foot slipped to the gas pedal causing her car to move forward to the barriers, the barriers snapped “like paper.”
“Accidents happen in parking garages, just as they do elsewhere on streets and highways,” alleges the parking garage accident lawsuit. “And just like the law and standard of care requires vehicles to have seat belts and passenger restraint systems to protect people in case of an accident, the law and standard of care likewise requires parking garage owners and operators to have adequate barriers and restraint systems in place to keep vehicles from plunging from their floors in the case of an accident.”
According to the lawsuit, the garage was constructed in 1979 with a cable barrier system; however, the cable barrier system has never been updated since 1979 and is “dangerous, dilapidated, and in need of serious upgrade and repair at various locations.”
This is not the first falling car from the Littlefield Garage at East Sixth and Brazos in Austin where the parking garage accident occurred. Spectrum News reports that a man dangled precariously in his SUV in September of 2016. According to the report, the vehicle crashed through a barrier on the ninth floor of the garage and dangled by one cable wrapped around a front tire. The man was saved by a passerby who helped pull him to safety.
The lawsuit references the earlier parking garage accident and notes that “City inspectors who visited the site after the July incident apparently found signs that no repairs had been completed since the first incident when someone drove off the garage in September 2016.”
The plaintiff accuses the garage owners and operators of negligence and gross negligence for failing to maintain and repair the restraint systems in the parking garage.
“Defendants simply ignored the law and the standard of care, and even in the aftermath of a nationally publicized accident where a vehicle narrowly avoided plunging from their dangerous garage due to what they were told then was an inadequate barrier/restraint system, Defendants simply rolled the dice with their patrons’ lives and bet that no other vehicle would plunge from the garage,” the lawsuit states. “Defendants were wrong and that bet almost cost Christi B[.] her life.”
If you’ve been injured in a parking garage accident, the experienced attorneys at McDonald Worley can help. Contact them today for a FREE case evaluation.