Couple sue Cape Girardeau County over fall in Common Pleas Courthouse 'dungeon'

A Cape Girardeau woman and her husband have sued Cape Girardeau County government over serious injuries she sustained in 2013 when she fell down stairs leading to the basement at the historic Common Pleas Courthouse.

According to the lawsuit, the woman, Pamela Allen, suffered severe injuries to her lower extremities, upper extremities and body as a whole, including a fracture of her left leg.

The basement of the Common Pleas Courthouse in Cape Girardeau as seen Feb. 11, 2015.Laura Simon

It’s alleged she suffered “life threatening blood clots in her lungs” and was hospitalized in intensive care for a time.

Allen underwent surgery and extensive rehabilitation as a result of her injuries, according to the suit. She had a blood filter implanted in her leg. The suit alleges Allen has experienced and will continue to suffer physical pain from her injuries. “Her injuries are permanent and disabling,” the document states.

County officials contend the county government has sovereign immunity from “any and all allegations” in this case and the woman may have been at fault.

The county, in its legal response, also maintains it does not have “exclusive possession or control” of the courthouse in downtown Cape Girardeau.

Pamela and Kelly Allen brought the lawsuit in March of this year in Cape Girardeau County Circuit Court. On May 24, the case was moved to Stoddard County on a change of venue and assigned to Judge Stephen R. Mitchell.

The judge granted the plaintiffs’ motion for another 30 days to conduct discovery. The plaintiffs’ attorney had asked for the additional time to research the county’s claim “the city of Cape Girardeau and the state of Missouri control the courthouse and the storage location of court records.”

The city actually owns the building, although building repairs have been handled by the county. The circuit court system is part of state government.

The lawsuit alleges the stairs leading to the so-called “dungeon” were “physically defective in that they are narrower and steeper than modern building standards, uneven and slickened with paint.” The suit also alleges the stairway was poorly lit with exposed wiring and created “a dangerous condition for persons slipping and falling.”

After Pamela Allen fell and suffered injuries, the county removed court files from the basement and transferred them to the county’s archive center in Jackson, according to the suit.

The county, represented by attorney Mary Eftink Boner of Jackson, responded in its written “answer” to the petition that Allen was “comparatively at fault” and “contributorily negligent” in sustaining injuries in one or more ways. Boner wrote in the court document those ways include taking the stairs in a “careless and negligent manner, wearing improper footwear for traveling upon stairs, failing to make use of the handrail ... and/or being distracted while traversing the stairs.”

The Cape Girardeau courthouse was built in the 1850s.

The suit contends the county knew the stairs were “dangerous and in a defective physical condition.”

But county officials argue in their legal response “the ‘antebellum’ construction of the Common Pleas Courthouse is open and obvious to all.” They maintain the “plaintiff assumed the risk” in using the stairs.

According to the suit, Pamela Allen worked as a processor for a local real estate title company. Part of her duties required her to locate and copy court judgments affecting real estate ownership such as divorce decrees.

Some of those documents were stored in the basement, the lawsuit states.

According to the suit, filed on the couple’s behalf by Cape Girardeau attorney D. Matthew Edwards, “the dungeon was off limits to the general public and access to the dungeon was controlled by county employees, which was in part due to the generally hazardous and dangerous condition of the dungeon.”

County employees, the petition states, “preferred to avoid entering the dungeon unless absolutely necessary because of its dank and dangerous condition.”

On Aug. 26, 2013, Pamela Allen went to the Common Pleas Courthouse to retrieve a court file. A courthouse employee advised her the file was in the dungeon and instructed her to unlock the door to the basement and enter the stairway, according to the lawsuit.

While going down the stairs, she slipped and fell, the suit states.

“Pamela’s slip and fall was directly related to the defective physical condition of the dungeon stairs and stairwell” the suit claims.

“After lying on the landing to the dungeon for approximately two to three minutes, Pamela attempted to crawl back up the stairs while yelling for assistance and was eventually discovered,” the suit states.

According to the suit, Pamela Allen has incurred more than $130,000 in expenses for medical care and treatment, and additional expenses will be incurred in the future.

Both she and her husband ask in the lawsuit for “fair and reasonable compensation.”

In addition to medical bills, Pamela Allen alleges in count 1 she has suffered “an impaired and diminished capacity for work, labor and pleasure.”

Allen’s husband, Kelly, in count 2, seeks compensation for being deprived of his wife’s “society, services, support, association, consortium and companionship” as well as the loss of his wife’s income and the expenses associated with caring for her.

Boner and Edwards, the attorneys in the case, could not be reached for comment.

mbliss@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3641

Pertinent address:

44 N. Lorimier, Cape Girardeau, Mo.