About $1.84M against a building owner after a student fell down a freight elevator shaft at a rented gallery

A Shelby County jury returned a $4,103,472 verdict for a student who fell down a freight elevator shaft while collecting his work after an exhibit at a rented gallery in a mixed-use building. The owner’s share, as the trial court finally set it, was 45 percent, which works out to about $1,846,562.

The building had three floors and a basement, with businesses and the rented gallery on the lower floors. A state entity rented the gallery for a December 2005 student exhibit. The owner let the renter use the freight elevator to move large pieces but insisted that only he operate it, and he had the renter sign an indemnification agreement. The next morning the student came back with his father and a friend to remove his exhibit. After the owner brought the elevator down and the others helped load it, the student’s father found him semiconscious at the bottom of the shaft in the basement. He had a traumatic brain injury and about $410,000 in medical bills.

The jury trial began October 25, 2011. The jury put 35 percent of the fault on the owner, 60 percent on the state, which was sued over the renter’s conduct, and 5 percent on the student. The trial judge kept the damages but reapportioned fault at 45 percent for the owner, 40 percent for the state and 15 percent for the student, and capped the state’s liability at $300,000 under Tennessee law. The judge also ruled that the indemnity agreement made the state pay the owner’s share as the jury set it, $1,436,215.20.

On October 8, 2013, the Court of Appeals of Tennessee reversed that indemnity ruling, holding that the agreement did not clearly cover the owner’s own negligence. It upheld the damages evidence rulings and the $300,000 cap. It also revived a claim against a related foundation and sent the case back to decide that claim and to reallocate fault if necessary. We have not found any later ruling, so the owner’s final share is not known.