Wrongful Death / Premises Liability

Our client's family member had just moved into a new apartment complex in Bend. The property was open to tenants, but portions of the grounds were still being finished.

While walking along an outdoor sidewalk near one of the buildings, she caught her foot on the concrete, tried to steady herself, and fell off the edge. She went down a steep embankment and struck her head against a wall.

The slip and fall dispute centered on whether the property should have been open and accessible the way it was at the time, without edge protection or a handrail in an area with a significant drop-off.

The lawsuit raised negligence and premises-liability claims, along with a claim that the landlord and property manager failed to keep the grounds safe for normal and foreseeable use. In plain terms: whether the walkway was reasonably safe for a tenant to use, and whether the fall was preventable.

• The defense contested responsibility, including arguments that blame rested elsewhere or with the circumstances of the walk itself.
• Causation and damages were contested, including the difficult question of how the fall related to what happened medically afterward.
• Multiple companies were involved (ownership/management and construction), which made responsibility harder to sort out than a single-defendant case.

The case moved into litigation and formal discovery. As the parties exchanged information about the sidewalk conditions, the construction work, and what safety measures were (and were not) in place, the focus stayed on what a tenant could reasonably expect when walking through her own apartment complex.

The matter ultimately resolved in mediation before trial. The settlement required court approval and allowed the family to avoid the uncertainty and strain of taking a wrongful death case all the way to a jury.

The case settled at mediation for a single, global payment that resolved the claims against the defendants.

Because the settlement agreement includes a confidentiality provision about publishing the settlement amount, this page does not state the dollar figure. The settlement nonetheless provided meaningful compensation tied to the losses and expenses that followed the fall, and it brought the case to a close without trial.

After a serious fall and a death that followed, families are left to deal with grief and paperwork at the same time medical bills, insurance issues, and the hard question of whether what happened should have been prevented. Resolving this case through mediation gave the family financial stability around the costs and a clear ending point, so they could stop living in the case and focus on what came next.