Roig Lawyers Partner, Jenna Hackman, Gets Lawsuit Voluntarily Dismissed

A plaintiff seeking personal injury damages for an alleged wrist surgery, lost wages, and pain and suffering voluntarily dismissed her lawsuit in Broward Circuit Court on April 11 following a Motion to Dismiss for Fraud and Sanctions.

Jenna Hackman, a partner in the Deerfield Beach office of ROIG Lawyers, obtained a voluntary dismissal in a premises liability case on behalf of client South Broward Hospital District. Hackman uncovered discrepancies and falsehoods in the deposition of the Plaintiff, when compared to the Plaintiff’s medical and employment records that showed she did not miss two months of work due to the alleged incident as she had claimed. Most crucially, video surveillance of the alleged incident demonstrated the Plaintiff had fabricated the incident and misrepresented what occurred to hospital security, her medical providers and during sworn testimony.

Shantrell Currie, who admitted in deposition to having a litigious past, initially claimed her left wrist was injured when it was caught in the closing doors of an elevator during a 2010 visit to Memorial Regional Hospital. Currie said while taking her son to an appointment, her son entered the elevator first and she was injured when she tried to stop the doors from closing as she entered. She told hospital security her wrist was trapped for “four seconds” and a Good Samaritan helped release her hand. She also told her medical providers that her wrist was jammed or trapped in the elevator doors. Currie sued both the hospital and ThyssenKrupp Elevator Corp. alleging various levels of negligence.

In the Motion to Dismiss for Fraud and Sanctions, Hackman highlighted discrepancies in Currie’s story—namely that Currie retracted her initial claim to the security officer and her doctors that the elevator closed on her wrist for “four seconds” and testified differently at her deposition that the elevator door closed striking her left wrist, not trapping it, and continued without opening back up once it sensed her in the doorway. Video surveillance showed something entirely different – that Currie entered the elevator without incident ahead of her son, who held the door back to allow his mother to enter safely, followed by two additional people behind them. The surveillance demonstrated that the elevator doors never trapped her wrist, never struck her wrist and continued closing right behind her. With regard to her claim that she was forced to miss two months of work and wages as a school bus driver as a result of the incident, employment records obtained by Hackman demonstrated that while Currie missed a lot of work for various unrelated medical and family reasons, she had not missed two months. Not only did Currie work after the date of the alleged incident but she worked overtime.

In the Motion to Dismiss, Hackman alleged the claim was fraudulent and sought sanctions against the Plaintiff as well as attorney fees to be awarded to South Broward Hospital District. Plaintiff subsequently filed her Voluntary Dismissal.

ThyssenKrupp was represented by Robert E. Saks of Shapiro Blasi Wasserman & Hermann.