Massachusetts Partners Obtain Jury Verdict for Restaurateur Client

Boston-area Partners Gayatri R. Deodhar and Angela L. Linson recently obtained a unanimous jury verdict in Suffolk County Superior Court on behalf of our high-end restaurateur client.

Plaintiff was attending a company holiday party at our client’s restaurant in downtown Boston, Massachusetts, when three glasses fell from a server’s tray as he cleared a table nearby. According to Plaintiff, the glasses broke as they hit the floor and a shard of glass struck her in her left eye, resulting in a subconjunctival hemorrhage. Plaintiff claimed that the subconjunctival hemorrhage caused a vitreous veil to form in her left eye. Subsequently, Plaintiff filed suit against our client, seeking half a million dollars in damages for pain and suffering.

At trial, our Defense showed that neither Plaintiff, nor any of her witnesses, had any knowledge of how the glasses fell from the server’s tray; therefore, our Defense argued that Plaintiff could not prove that our client was negligent. Through lay witness testimony and expert medical testimony, our Defense also proved that no shards of glass were recovered from Plaintiff’s eye after the incident occurred. Additionally, Plaintiff had a documented 30-year history of complications in both eyes, including histoplasmosis, vitreous veils and vitreous detachments. Our Defense emphasized that it was more likely that the formation of a vitreous veil in Plaintiff’s left eye was the result of a natural progression due to her documented prior diagnoses, rather than the subconjunctival hemorrhage she sustained following this incident.

Our attorneys, Gayatri and Angela, tried this case against Plaintiff’s counsel in court for four days and, over the Defense’s objection, the jury received an instruction as to res ipsa loquitur. In December 2023, the eight-person jury took merely an hour to find that Defendant was not negligent, returning a unanimous verdict in favor of our client.

Gayatri advises clients in civil litigation matters, including personal injury, products liability, premises liability and construction cases, and against employment and professional liability claims.

Angela represents clients in a range of complex litigation matters, such as premises liability, products liability, executive and professional liability, employment litigation and bad faith claims.