#SF could pay $2.25M to woman injured at Palace of Fine Arts https://t.co/yllJUZ1BVb pic.twitter.com/KMFdL3swoE
— SF Examiner (@sfexaminer) March 22, 2016
San Francisco's City Attorney has recommended that the city settle a lawsuit brought by a woman injured after falling from a Palace of Fine Arts rotunda during some early-morning revelry. The settlement amount? A cool $2.25 million.
According to the Ex, it was 2:30 a.m. on a September 2013 morning when then-26-year-old Lisa Owen and a group of friends were clambering around on the steps you see above, which lead to a "raised platform" at the top of the PFA rotunda.
That's when Owen fell from one of the steps, "resulting in multiple injuries to her spine."
Owen filed suit against SF's Recreation and Parks Department, the San Francisco Park Alliance, the Palace of Fine Arts League, and the Maybeck Foundation (which, the Ex reports, represents the building’s architect) on July 8, 2014. You can read the lawsuit here.
According to the suit, Rec and Parks workers had stated that “the area as very high risk,” and said that the steps "were uneven and poorly maintained, and lacked adequate lighting, hand railings and barriers discouraging people from climbing to the raised platform."
This isn't the first time these stairs have been the site of a litigious fall: Back in August of 2010, a man who fell from those same steps also sued the city. That case was dismissed, the Ex reports.
Owen's suit, it appears, fared much better. In a statement, SF's City Attorney's office says that they believe that the proposed $2.25 million "is a fair settlement agreement, which allows the parties to avoid the risks and costs of further litigation.”
According to the agenda for today's full meeting of the Board of Supervisors, the Board will vote to approve or deny the proposed settlement today. However, that's basically just a formality, as according to a March 1 filing, SF Superior Court has been notified that the case has been settled, and a dismissal hearing has already been added to the court calendar.