An elderly Ohio woman is suing a Casper motel after she tripped on a carpet and broke her femur in September, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court.
According to the documents, Dianne Snyder, 74, was visiting Wyoming from Ohio with her husband on Sept. 11, 2021. The couple decided to stay at the National 9 Inn, also known as the Showboat Motel, because they liked the nautical theme.
As the Snyders checked into the motel, they were given a wagon to carry their luggage in and instructed to not use the front or side door of the building, only the back, even though their room was near the front of the building. There were “multiple” rugs on top of the carpet and on top of tile flooring toward the front door.
The wagon the Snyders were given was not a typical luggage cart, as it was low to the ground and had a handle that was not fixed in place, the lawsuit said. Snyder guided the wagon and her husband pushed it from behind.
The couple wheeled the wagon through the back door to get their luggage. As they wheeled the cart back toward the front of the motel, Snyder tripped and fell over a rug “that had been placed on top of an especially frayed portion of the motel’s indoor carpet.”
She could not hold the wagon’s handle for support, as it was not fixed in place. She fell to the side and landed on the tile floor that adjoined the hallway, hearing a crack.
Her left shoulder, hip and knee hit the flooring.
Snyder was then transported by ambulance to the Wyoming Medical Center, where she stayed for 11 days. She had broken her femur in two places and underwent surgery.
According to the lawsuit, Snyder’s injuries have impacted her ability to walk and sleep normally and she is consistently in pain. She has also had to use walking aides since the incident.
The lawsuit accuses the motel for breaching its duty of care to Snyder by failing to warn or repair the dangerous conditions in the common areas, failing to discover and mitigate the dangerous condition existing in the area, providing Snyder dangerous equipment and other failures to act.
The lawsuit also accuses the motel of negligence.
Snyder is asking for punitive and exemplary damages.
