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VALPARAISO, Ind. (AP) — A northern Indiana jury has awarded more than a half-million dollars to a woman who was injured when she stepped into a hole outside a Wal-Mart store.
The Porter County jury awarded 29-year-old Micela Earle of Hobart $510,000 on Friday for her injuries. That was far short of the $5 million she had sought in her civil lawsuit against Wal-Mart but more than double the $200,000 a Wal-Mart attorney suggested to jurors during Friday's closing arguments.
Earle's suit alleged that Wal-Mart was negligent in removing a tree along a sidewalk outside its Portage store, leaving behind a hole that she stepped in, leaving her with a painful injury that still lingers, The (Munster) Times reported (http://bit.ly/1xIUgyZ ).
Jurors determined that Wal-Mart was 85 percent to blame for the December 2012 incident.
Earle's attorney, Gregory Sarkisian, said that she faces a lifetime of pain-related suffering, limitations and treatments from the injury.
"This is about a normal citizen carrying the burden of an uncertain future," he said.
Wal-Mart attorney James Balog argued during closing arguments that a doctor hired by the store doesn't believe Earle suffered more than a sprained ankle, despite a diagnosis of a pain condition that resulted in her having a spinal cord stimulator implanted.
He showed the jurors a surveillance video of the incident outside the store and suggested that Earle's injury was her own fault.
"She's not looking where she's going," he said. "... The accident doesn't happen if she just looks down."
Balog defended Wal-Mart's decision to shoot a surveillance video March 10 of Earle leaving a vehicle and using her leg to close the door. He reminded jurors before they began deliberating that they were no to treat his client any different than any other when considering the outcome of this week's civil case.
"The fact that Wal-Mart is the defendant has nothing to do with damages," he said.
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Information from: The Times, http://www.thetimesonline.com
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