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Disabled attorney
takes on Hyatt
He's suing the hotel for
By Russ Lynch
injuries allegedly suffered in
falling off a shower stool
Star-BulletinA wheelchair-bound attorney who has brought dozens of Americans with Disabilities Act cases against Hawaii businesses is pressing his own case in federal court this week, claiming unspecified damages for injuries he said he suffered when he fell from a shower stool in a room at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki Hotel.
The hotel's defense, in a jury trial that opened Tuesday, is that health problems plaintiff Randall Martin has are related to his own condition and not from anything that may have happened at the hotel.
The hotel also is questioning whether the accident happened at all. In her opening remarks attorney Patricia Napier, representing Hyatt, said Martin was the only witness to the alleged accident and while he presented hotel management with a list of complaints at the end of his weekend stay in 1997, he said nothing at the time about a fall.
He also said nothing to any of his doctors for more than four weeks after his stay, Napier said.
Martin's attorney, Janice Kim, said that Martin did report the accident to the hotel when he checked out but the hotel now has no record of that report.
She told the jury Tuesday that Martin, who has been in a wheelchair since he was 15 and cannot use his legs and one arm, told the hotel before he checked in that he was handicapped and would need a roll-in shower, big enough to get in and out with his wheelchair.
The hotel provided that, Kim said, but did not provide something for Martin to sit on while showering. After repeated requests, the hotel provided a stool which Martin used to take a shower but fell off when he tried to get back into his wheelchair, she said.
Kim said Martin developed chest pains that made him think he might be having a heart attack and incurred severe pain.
After a number of doctors visits in the ensuing year he was found to have compression fractures of the spine and was told that there is no surgery that will cure it, she said.
Martin alleges the medical problems resulted from the fall and he was weakened by subsequent steroid injections to the extent that he can no longer put on his own shoes or drive his wheelchair.
Kim said Martin has to live with a morphine infusion pump that constantly treats his pain.
For Hyatt, attorney Napier said that Martin is an ADA expert who would have known that reporting a fall immediately after it happened was the right thing to do in order to correct any noncompliance.
If he had, the hotel would have investigated immediately and many aspects of the case would have been clear, Napier said. For example, the seat he used could have been kept for evidence.
Martin did not go to a doctor until six days after the alleged fall and that was for a previously made appointment and he said nothing to that doctor about a possible injury, Napier said.
Napier said the hotel had several choices in designing showers for the handicapped and its choice of a roll-in shower with a moveable seat was allowed by city building code safety rules.
The trial before U.S. Judge Susan Oki Mollway continued today with Martin being questioned by another attorney for Hyatt, David Dezzani.
