$2M verdict after bar patron fell over an exterior stair railing

A Talladega County jury awarded $2 million to a bar patron who fell over the railing of an exterior staircase.

The bar and restaurant, in the town of Lincoln, opened with a single floor and an attic. In 2017 it turned the attic into a second-floor bar and built an exterior staircase leading to a new upstairs entrance.

In August 2018, a patron in his sixties who was blind in one eye went to the upstairs bar with friends, entering through the ground floor and taking the interior stairs. When the group left around 4 a.m., the doorman told them they could not go down the interior stairs and had to use the exterior staircase.

On the second step he lost his balance. He reached for the handrail, felt nothing and fell over the railing to the ground. He suffered multiple fractures, a closed head injury and a back injury that required fusion surgery. He blamed the design and construction of the stairs and handrails, and the jury found for him on October 20, 2023.