Long Beach approved a $1.7 million settlement this week for a man who suffered a severe head injury after tripping on an uneven sidewalk outside a Belmont Heights home nearly four years ago.
On Sept. 9, 2021, William McAneney, who was 68 at the time, was out for a walk with his dog near Mira Mar Avenue and Sixth Street when he saw his friend and was invited in for a cup of coffee, according to a lawsuit he filed in June 2022.
As he left his friend’s house on Mira Mar Avenue, he tripped on a section of sidewalk that had been lifted up by jacaranda tree roots underneath, the lawsuit stated.
The raised sidewalk had been there for years and the city had done “several public inspections that should have revealed the condition as well as its danger and led to a repair,” said Brian Ward of Trial Lawyers for Justice, one of two law firms that represented McAneney.
The Long Beach City Council approved the $1.7 million settlement at its meeting on Tuesday, one day after the trial was scheduled to begin.
The settlement amount was reached through a mediator. The City Attorney’s office recommended settling the case to “avoid the risk/costs of a jury trial – particularly given Mr. McAneney’s very serious injuries,” Deputy City Attorney Howard Russell said in a statement.
McAneney was knocked unconscious by the fall and was found by his friend, who called 911 and got McAneney rushed to a hospital for treatment, Ward said.
As a result of the fall, McAneney suffered a brain bleed that required surgery, along with a fractured eye socket and bleeding in one of his retinas, according to the lawsuit.
Before the injury, McAneney had run his own business, Medi-Signal Systems, for more than 50 years with just one part-time employee. In a deposition, McAneney said the business designs “patient flow systems” that allow private practices to see more patients per day on a walk-in basis.
According to its website, Medi-Signal Systems has Cedars-Sinai, USC, UCLA and Scripps Medical Center as its main clients.
While recovering from the injuries, McAneney could not work for seven months, which cost him roughly $75,000, he estimated in the lawsuit.
McAneney’s daughter had to step in as his “de facto caretaker” after the fall, Ward said.
After he returned to work, he also had to hire several other employees to help with business operations, Ward said.
“It’s really tragic that a one-hour fix would have prevented this complete disruption to his life,” Ward said.
The fall left him with amnesia for up to six weeks after the accident, Ward said. McAneney still grapples with mood disregulation, memory loss, spells of dizziness and headaches, requiring an estimated $3.2 million in future medical care, according to Ward.
Ward said the settlement amount was “beneath the expectations,” but his client chose to accept the offer because there were challenges in proving the exact sequence of events, given that there was no witness to the fall and McAneney had amnesia surrounding the accident.