More than seven years after special education teacher Justine Gurrola suffered a severe fall on a poor sidewalk in Whittier, California, which sent her to the hospital with serious injuries, a jury ruled in favor of compensating her with $7.5 million.

“Thank God they We did it. I suffered a lot, and I still have injuries to my wrist, arms, and head,” Justine said.

She clarified that she did not sue for money, although she acknowledged that the compensation will help pay for the treatment and medical bills she still faces due to the after-effects of the brutal slam against the pavement.

“The most important thing is that the lawsuit will help the City of Whittier fix the streets so no more people get hurt. For an elderly person, a fall on a sidewalk can have dramatic consequences, including death. That's why I did it, to force the City to maintain the sidewalks and trees. walking on the sidewalk with her nephew in Whittier, California, when her foot suddenly struck a dangerous rise on the sidewalk, causing her to fall forward violently.

Justine reached out to try and break her fall, but was unable to prevent herself from collapsing face first onto the concrete. The collapse was directly caused by tree roots pushing against the concrete of the sidewalk from below, causing it to rise 2.2 inches off the ground.

After the fall, her nephew helped her walk home; From there, he took her directly to the emergency room. There, she was diagnosed with a broken wrist and elbow, bruises and abrasions on her left knee, a tooth that had split her lip, acute nasal fractures and a brain CT scan revealed a hematoma on the front of her left scalp.

She was later diagnosed with mild head trauma.

It was the professor's attorneys who announced that the City agreed to pay during the damages phase of a jury trial for failing to fix an elevated sidewalk that was the site of the accident.

The jury unanimously decided that the City of Whittier was 100% at fault for the injuries the teacher suffered.

“The City of Whittier breached its most fundamental duty to keep its residents safe and cared more about its trees than its people,” said Nick Rowley, nationally renowned trial attorney and co-founder of Trial Lawyers for Justice.

“For years, the City of Whittier ignored a known hazard and did nothing to implement an inspection system, allowing complaints to pile up until it was too late and Justine Gurrola was seriously injured.”

He added that public safety is not limited to police and firefighters; and it is not about ensuring roadways are maintained to prevent injuries or worse.

“Waiting until people are seriously injured or killed to fix long-standing dangerous conditions is wrong.”

Attorney Rowley thanked the jury for taking time out of their lives, jobs, and families to serve and listen to such a long five-week trial.

“Each juror spent two hours with us in the courtroom after the trial and told us that serving on the jury in this trial was a life-changing experience. Without juries, we wouldn't have a civil justice system.”

She said they also had James Blancarte, a great judge.

“We are forever grateful to our jury and the civil justice system.”

The attorneys explained that Justine's case met all of these requirements.

“The City of Whittier did not have an inspection system and only began implementing one two years after Ms. Gurrola's incident, when the City Insurance Group required an inspection system to renew her insurance.”

Similarly, they said the City did not have plans or protocols in place to conduct and document regular inspections of the sidewalks on their property.

“The City knew the tree roots were a problem and required the damaged items to be replaced,” Justine's advocates said.

Whittier's Director of Human Resources and Risk Management, Yolanda Martinez, testified that the most significant claim against the city is for “tree roots causing damage to the sidewalks.”

In the seven years since the incident, the teacher has seen numerous doctors for injuries she sustained, including a head injury that caused significant volume loss in her frontal and temporal lobes, which in turn caused loss of executive function, emotional regulation, and memory capacity.

In addition to these injuries, she also suffered acute fractures of her nose and fractures to her left wrist and elbow.Her injuries to both knees required arthroscopic surgery.

She also suffers from mild head trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), memory loss, and cognitive impairments.