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Jacob Freeman was found to have a blood alcohol level of .208 when he fell down a staircase at the rear of the Our House East’s bar. |
NU student’s kin awarded $6.7m
Judge orders bar to pay in ’07 fall
A judge has awarded more than $6.7 million to the family of a Northeastern University student who fell down a set of stairs at a Boston bar in 2007 and died after a night of drinking. The judge’s award comes about three months after a jury ruled the bar violated the city building code but was not liable for the 21-year-old man’s death.
“We couldn’t understand how the jury came to such a decision,’’ Lisa Klairmont, 55, of Tiburon, Calif., said last night in a phone interview. Her son, Jacob Freeman, died in the fall at Our House East on Gainsborough Street in the early morning hours of April 1, 2007. “We’re very grateful that the judge carefully reviewed all of the facts and came to a just decision.’’
In a ruling entered into the docket yesterday, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Elizabeth M. Fahey said she ordered the bar to pay damages on the grounds it violated the city’s permitting process for decades and ignored safety hazards presented by the stairs that Freeman fell down, among other violations.
According to a finding of facts in her ruling, Freeman had a blood-alcohol level of .208 — the legal limit for driving in the state is .08 — when he fell down a staircase at the rear of the bar leading to the basement. The judge said the staircase lacked required rails, was poorly lit, and did not have a landing, among other hazards. She also said Freeman’s view of the staircase was obscured by vinyl stripes.
Kevin S. Taylor of Denver, a lawyer for Gainsboro Restaurant Inc. — the owner of the bar — said in a phone interview that the area Freeman was in when he fell is off limits to customers, though Fahey said in her ruling that patrons were known to frequent the area. And, Taylor said, the owners presented city documents at trial going back a number of years indicating there were no violations at the bar. He also said nobody saw Freeman fall.
Taylor said the bar’s owners plan to appeal the ruling.
Fahey acknowledged in her ruling that city inspectors never cited any problems with the staircase. But she also said the owners avoided seeking a required permit to build it, and never obtained another permit necessary to run a bar at that address. And, she said, ownership made no repairs to the staircase even after two people fell on it.
Taylor said one of those who fell was a disgruntled employee whose workers’ compensation claim in a separate incident was denied. Taylor said the second fall was uncorroborated “hearsay.’’
Klairmont said it was “gut-wrenching’’ to see her son “denigrated’’ at trial because of his blood-alcohol level.
Taylor said several of Freeman’s NU friends, many of whom testified for the plaintiffs, described him at the trial as a heavy drinker.
A lawyer for Freeman’s estate, Jeffrey A. Newman of Boston, said in a phone interview that it is rare for a judge to reverse part of a jury’s ruling in a civil trial.
“It’s not often that a jury doesn’t render a finding and a judge does that,’’ Newman said. “But . . . this is a very, very good decision.’’
Travis Andersen can be reached at tandersen@globe.com. 
© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.
