I’m pleased to announce the launch of my firm’s new and improved website — attorneysheehan.com.

I have had the privilege of representing hundreds of injured workers and accident victims over the years. While some in the media and our communities joke about lawyers — often in a malicious, mean spirited and uninformed way — I have seen the positive impact my legal representation has made in the lives of my clients and their families.

If you ask me what do I do for a living? I could answer that I’m a personal injury trial lawyer. I say that with great pride. Really, what I do is simply help people…regular, everyday working people. That’s the same for my fellow trial lawyers.

I offer this reflection as I start a new beginning with this new and improved website. I hope that it provides a valuable service to injured workers and accident victims in Massachusetts.

Copyright © 2010 John J. Sheehan

As reported in this week’s Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, the Massachusetts Appeals Court rejected the “open and obvious danger” defense in a “snow and ice case”.  The case is Soederberg v. Concorde Greene Condominium Association et al., (Mass. App. Ct. Docket No. 09-P-380).

The case involved an elderly resident of the condominium complex who broke her hip when she slipped and fell on frozen slush while trying to walk to the parking lot.

The trial judge instructed the jury that it should issue a defense verdict if the it determined that the icy condition was an “open and obvious danger”.  The jury responded affirmatively to that special question and issued a defense verdict pursuant to the trial judge’s instructions.

In rejecting the “open and obvious danger” defense, the Massachusetts Appeals Court held:

“We conclude that the open and obvious danger rule does not operate to negate a landowner’s duty to remedy hazardous conditions resulting from unnatural accumulations of ice and snow, at least where, as here, those hazards lie in a known path of travel.”

It remains to be seen who extensive the impact of the decision will be.  Presumably, defense counsel will continue to use the “open and obvious danger” defense in order to argue that the plaintiff was comparatively negligent.  It may not, under the Soederberg case, be used bar to recovery absolutely.

Copyright © 2010 John J. Sheehan