A former analyst with banking giant JP Morgan has been awarded $35m after a glass door shattered on her head in New York City, causing her permanent brain damage.
A jury awarded 36-year-old Meghan Brown the payout after a 7.5ft-tall lobby door in midtown Manhattan exploded over her head as she was leaving a physical therapy appointment in 2015, the New York Post first reported on Monday.
Describing the incident in the Manhattan supreme court, Brown said: “I do remember seeing glass … everywhere in the lobby near me,” the Post reported, adding that Brown said she recalls “being inside and I was on the floor” as people came forward to help.
Following the incident at 271 Madison Avenue, Brown took time off for a year before returning to her job at JP Morgan, but her career gradually declined and she lost her job in 2021.
Brown’s attorney, Tom Moore, told the Post: “Eventually she was let go permanently and has not worked in that type of investment banking since … She keeps trying but just can’t perform.” Brown went on to work for a cryptocurrency company but was also fired, and now runs a gourmet ice cream business in Florida.
As a result of the door incident, Brown said she has suffered from a slew of problems including losing her sense of smell and taste, and forgetting Spanish, which she told the jury she once spoke fluently, the New York Post reports.
Other problems Brown said she experiences include PTSD, decline in memory, focus and vocabulary, sensitivity to light, permanent headaches, neck pain, distorted depth perception, vertigo and balance issues.
In addition to seeking various specialists to address her issues, Brown said she got a service dog to help prevent her from falling over.
Brown also said her brain injury affected her engagement to a man who told her he was unable to have a “normal life” with her, the New York Post reports.
In response to Brown, an attorney for the building’s owners said that the glass, which shattered into tiny pieces instead of falling as a single pane, broke the way it was supposed to and the only injury Brown had was a cut on her hand.
Nevertheless, a six-person jury unanimously ruled in favor of Brown and said that the building owner’s negligence was “a substantial factor in causing” her injuries, the New York Post reports, citing a jury verdict sheet.
Brown was awarded $35,184,208 in damages.
Benjamin Zipursky, a Fordham University law professor and tort law expert, said: “A typical component of an injured person’s damages award is what is their lost income … And when people have brain damage, the medical care for that can be very large because medical costs are so high.”
“The suffering that people can experience when their life has dramatically turned around and they have traumatic injury is also something for … the jury [to] decide what the fair compensation would be, so all of that plays into this,” he added.
