St. Louis, Mo. (October 15, 2025) - St. Louis Managing Partner Tracy Cowan and Kansas City Partner Jonathan Craig secured a summary judgment win in a Missouri negligence action with a $2 million demand. The plaintiff alleged he fell on uncleared ice on the client hotel’s parking lot and sustained a shoulder injury that required significant surgical intervention and loss of use. The Lewis Brisbois team’s aggressive discovery revealed that there was significantly more to the story, including that the plaintiff had made several trips back and forth on the hotel’s allegedly icy parking lot prior to injuring himself.
The plaintiff’s weather expert testified that between midnight and 6 am, the approximate time of the accident, a trace to ½ inch of ice had accumulated on all outdoor surfaces. Based on this and the plaintiff’s deposition testimony that he observed the icy conditions, the Lewis Brisbois team moved for summary judgment on the basis that the icy condition was open and obvious to the plaintiff and, separately, on the grounds that the Massachusetts Rule relieved the hotel of any duty to remove actively accumulating snow and ice from its open-air parking lot. The court agreed and granted summary judgment (and costs) in favor of the defendant hotel on the separate grounds that the condition was open and obvious to the plaintiff, and that the hotel had no duty to clear snow or ice from the area where plaintiff fell because the Massachusetts Rule relieved them of that duty while the weather conditions were active.