PENNSYLVANIA RECORD

PHILADELPHIA – A Levittown woman has filed a negligence lawsuit against two major resort companies for an alleged fall suffered at the Sheraton Bucks County hotel in Langhorne last year, which she claims left her with severe and permanent injuries to both her hip and right arm.

Rose Finkelstein filed the suit in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas on March 6, alleging Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide and Ashford Bucks County were negligent in designing the Villanova Amphitheater room of the Sheraton Bucks County, thus leading to her accident last summer.

Finkelstein was invited to the hotel on Sept. 6 as a business guest by the Saint Mary’s Hospital system for a lecture spotlighting health issues faced by senior citizens. Upon entering the Villanova Amphitheater, the lawsuit says Finkelstein was seated in an elevated area with wall-to-wall carpeting.

According to the lawsuit, Finkelstein left her seat prior to the lecture to use the restroom in the lobby. Finkelstein claims the hotel did not have a posted sign or marker warning guests of the change in elevation from the row of the seats to the descending step located nearby, causing her to lose her footing.

At that time, Finkelstein fell to the amphitheater floor and sustained a hip fracture in addition to a right humeral fracture, the suit says.

Though Finkelstein first filed the suit in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas last month, the defendants cited diversity of citizenship and requested the complaint removed to U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide is a Maryland corporation based in Stamford, Conn., and Ashford Bucks County, LLC is a Delaware limited liability entity based in Dallas.

The plaintiff is represented by Ezra Wohlgelernter of Philadelphia-based firm Feldman, Shepherd, Wohlgelernter, Tanner, Weinstock & Dodig, LLP.

The defendants are represented by Victoria M. Komarnicki of Bennett, Brickman & Saltzburg, LLC, also of Philadelphia.

United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania case 2:15-cv-01931