Result: $150,000 settlement secured on behalf of a restaurant employee who fractured her knee after slipping on a hazard her own employer's workers failed to clean up, at a national fast-food chain that had opted out of the Texas workers' compensation system.
A dropped lid sat on the floor for 45 minutes. The video proved everything.
The Situation
Our client had worked the drive-thru window at her restaurant for years without incident. On an ordinary shift, a coworker dropped a plastic drink lid on the kitchen floor. It should have taken seconds to pick up. Instead, surveillance video shows it sitting there, stepped on, kicked around, and ignored by employee after employee, for 45 minutes.
No one posted a warning. No one picked it up. Then, as our client walked through carrying drinks for a customer's order, her foot came down on the lid. It slid out from under her, and she went down hard, her knee slamming into the tile floor, the entire fall captured on the restaurant's own camera.
The Injuries
The fall left our client with a severe fracture of her kneecap. Emergency surgery was required the very next day, with an orthopedic surgeon rebuilding the joint using wires, a mesh plate, and a series of screws, hardware that remains in her knee permanently.
She spent additional days in the hospital, was sent home wheelchair-bound, and endured months of recovery and physical therapy before she could return to work. Even after her employer's injury benefit plan cut off further treatment, she continued seeking care on her own for lingering pain, ultimately requiring additional injections and ongoing pain management. Today, she still struggles with stairs and standing for long periods, relies on medication to manage her pain, and carries a permanent 10-inch scar as a daily reminder of that day.
The Legal Strategy
As a Texas workers' compensation non-subscriber, the employer owed our client a non-delegable duty to keep her workplace safe, including warning of hazards it knew about and promptly correcting dangerous conditions. Its own internal policy required employees to immediately clear litter from the floor, especially in high-traffic areas like the one where our client was hurt.
We didn't have to rely on witness memory or speculation. The restaurant's own surveillance footage told the whole story minute by minute: the moment the lid hit the floor, the moment coworkers stepped over and kicked it without a second thought, and the moment our client's foot caught it and she went down. It was a hazard the company created, ignored, and then let injure one of its own employees.
What We Demanded
Our demand was built on three things the employer could not explain away:
- Minute-by-minute surveillance video establishing exactly how long the hazard sat unaddressed before our client was hurt.
- The employer's own written policy requiring floor hazards to be cleared immediately, a policy multiple employees ignored in plain view of a manager.
- A liability theory that left the non-subscriber employer with no meaningful defense to the obvious negligence of its own staff.
The Result
Facing video evidence that left no room to dispute how the fall happened, or how long the hazard had been ignored, the employer agreed to resolve the non-subscriber work injury claim for $150,000, delivering meaningful compensation for our client's surgery, medical care, and lasting pain.
Why It Matters
A single dropped lid, left on the floor for 45 minutes, changed our client's life. This case shows why it matters to move fast, preserve video evidence, and hold employers to the safety standards they set for themselves.
If you've been hurt on the job because a hazard was left unaddressed, you may have more options, and more leverage, than you realize. Our Dallas work injury lawyer can explain how a non-subscriber claim works and what your case may be worth.
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For a free consultation about your workplace injury case, call our Dallas office at (214) 932-1288 or complete our online contact form. You pay nothing unless we win your case.
This summary reflects a real case handled by our firm. Case details have been adapted to protect client confidentiality, and the parties' names have been omitted. Every case is different, and past results do not guarantee similar outcomes in future matters.