Elevator Tragedy Ends in Million Dollar Settlement

 

About two weeks ago Kathy Lynn Gray, a writer for the Columbus Post Dispatch, chronicled the story of an Ohio State freshman, Andy Polakowski, who was killed in an elevator accident back in 2006. The lawsuit filed by his parents, Janina and Kazimierz Polakowski, against the Ohio State University was settled for one million dollars. The story caught my attention for a number of reasons.

 

 

Most owners or maintainers of equipment like elevators, escalators or common carriers such as buses or aircraft, do a fairly good job of providing repairs and scheduled maintenance that prevent these types of accidents from happening. Ohio State, not being in the business of designing, building or maintaining elevators, sued everyone they could that did, bringing in an additional five defendants who all contributed some amount to the settlement. Those defendants included entities that built the elevator in question, sold it, repaired it or was under contract to maintain it. Even though it was alleged that the elevator was overcrowded at the time of the accident, experts opined that the additional weight should not have caused the elevator to move as it did with the door open. One defendant took over the maintenance contract on the elevator approximately three weeks before the accident occurred. Twenty three other passengers on the elevator escaped unharmed. None of the defendants admitted fault, but it appears that when a main brake fails on an elevator, something was obviously wrong. Tests done by the Ohio Department of Commerce conducted tests on the elevator after the accident and found that it would not hold the 3,125 lbs it was supposed to. This accident seemed to be one that would be preventable.

 

 

The other thing that I found a little puzzling about this case was the fact that, according to the article, the suit by Mr. Polakowski’s parents was filed three years after his death. The statute of limitations in Ohio, according to sources I checked, is two years for personal injury which should include wrongful death. Since he was 18 at the time of his death, the time period should have begun to run from that time. Additional research on this story indicates that the lawsuit was filed on January 9, 2009, just under three months outside the statute. The answer filed by Ohio State University failed to raise the statute of limitations as a defense. It is likely that some fact not present in the article would explain why the statute of limitations was not an issue in this case. If the running of the statute would have been an issue, but the defendants fail to raise it as a defense in their answers, the defense is waived.