Description:
The case involved a man who suffered from significant arthritis which restricted him to a wheelchair. However, the man lived independently at home with his wife, and regularly traveled around the small Southern Minnesota town where they lived in his wheelchair. On the day of his injury, the plaintiff was taken out for a recreational trip by a handicap transfer van service. Upon return to his home, the van driver placed the plaintiff on the handicap ramp, but because of the street configuration, the ramp was on somewhat of a down slope. The driver failed to lock the plaintiff's brakes, and the wheelchair flew off the end of the ramp, somersaulted, and the plaintiff was ejected from the chair with the chair subsequently landing on top of him. As a result of the arm fractures the plaintiff sustained in this injury, he was no longer able to live independently, and had to move to a nursing home.