Personal Injury from Building Elevator?

I was wondering if I should do anything about this. I was taking my 16 month old child to a Dr. appt today. We entered the elevator on the first floor as I was holding him, and went to the 4th floor. When the doors opened, I walked straight out and tripped, then fell with him in my arms.

I went to the Dr. appt, and we were out about 10 mins later. I went to push the button again to go down, when the doors opened I realized that the elevator car was about 6-8 inches lower than the floor I was standing on....this is why I tripped earlier. The car finally rose up to become even with the floor, and we entered to get back to the ground floor.

I contacted the building mgmt and she said they had the same problem last week, she thought it was fixed but hadn't checked. I had a friend who fell on her 2 year old and killed him, so I'm concerned that this hasn't been repaired.

I'm also having pain in my knee and ankle now. I do aerobics and would like to have it checked out.

Did you get the building manager to fill out an accident or injury report?

Do you have proof somehow that this happened?

If not , it is highly unlikely that you will get anything from them.

I think you did the right thing by informing building maintenance. At least they are aware of it now. I'm also sure they are aware that some people out there might try and sue em so I would imagine if they took a trouble report they may contact you.

While it's true the building management has a duty to make sure the elevator is operating correctly, I'd say you also have a duty to look where you're going when the doors open. You obviously took it for granted that the elevator was working right, which is understandable.

Would you have a case if you sued? Possibly. You would have had to go to the emergency room immediately, though, before any intervening incident. If you're claiming knee and ankle pain you'd better not have any pre-existing conditions in those areas. I'm sure you could get a lawyer to take the case on contingency, but why?

If you're concerned that other people might injure themselves on this elevator, write a certified letter to the management telling them to fix it, that the person you spoke to was aware of the problem (an important point, since they didn't fix it after being aware of it) and so on.