When people slip and fall, U. often pays

In the movies, a carelessly dropped banana peel can mean a good fall and a good laugh. But at the University it can mean a lawsuit and an increase in next year's tuition. No one here is laughing. The University has received an average of 37 to 60 general liability claims against it each year since 1980, according to Office of Risk Management Claims Supervisor Ronald Jasner. The average cost to the University for each claim was approximately $15,000 -- a cost that is ultimately passed onto students in the form of higher tuition. And costs can easily soar much higher if the University is forced to hire outside lawyers to defend against the claims in court, something the University routinely does, Jasner said. Attorneys' fees for trial time alone cost over $10,000, he said. "No matter how frivolous, every case cost us thousands just to hire a lawyer to avoid defaulting [on it]," Associate General Counsel Neil Hamburg said. "If that was all we did it would costs thousands of dollars. All that has an impact on the bottom line and that has an impact on tuition." That's thousands spent on the case of the graduate student who slipped in her dorm room shower and sued the University. Thousands on the woman who was hit by a champagne cork at a party in the Penn Tower Hotel and sued. There's the case of the man who sued the University when he chipped a tooth on the mug he bought at The Book Store. And the University cheerleader who jumped off a retaining wall during the late '80s keg-ban protest on Locust Walk, spraining her ankle. The list goes on and on. Those cases were either settled or dropped, Hamburg said. In general, over half of the claims made against the University are "frivolous," he said. He added that the University, like any large corporation, is an easy target of general liability law suits. "We're no different from any large corporation that owns a lot of property or has assets," Hamburg said. "There are plaintiff's lawyers out there who know they can get a monetary settlement." The University has a standing policy of settling any case they feel has substantial merit, Jasner and Hamburg said. "It costs lots of money to be vindicated in court," Hamburg said. "It is not economical, as a general rule, to try cases." He also said that "99.9 percent" of the cases against the University can be settled for much less than the cost of taking them to trial. For this reason, very few cases ever go to trial, he added. Lawsuits not only eat up University money, but devour time as well, Jasner said. It takes an average of 18 months for a case to be heard in federal court, he said. A case can take two to eight years to be heard in Common Pleas Court. And going to court is risky. Jasner described going to trial as "rolling the dice." The University might not only lose money defending the case but a jury might rule against the University, forcing it to pay damages, court costs and legal fees. "The Common Pleas Court system is not the most rational," Hamburg said. A good attorney might be able to take a frivolous claim and convince a jury to believe it in court, Hamburg said. The Office of Risk Management works with the Physical Plant's Fire and Occupational Safety Office and the General Counsel's Office to protect University assets from claims, Jasner said. The Fire and Occupational Safety Office conducts a yearly sidewalk safety survey, inspecting every inch of the campus' walkways for pot holes, toe jams and uneven stones that might trip unsuspecting pedestrians and lead to unnecessary slip and fall suits against the University, Jasner said. If someone does have a nasty fall on University property and decides to file a claim, the Office of Risk Management works to try to settle the case favorably for the University, Jasner said. If a case cannot be settled and goes to litigation, the General Counsel's office works with Risk Management in finding outside lawyers to handle the litigation and helps to supervise the case, Jasner said. The University's outside counsel are chosen based on their reputation for getting favorable results, he added. Even during litigation and trial, Risk Management tries to evaluate whether it would be better to try to settle the case, Jasner said.

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