PITTSBURGH – Counsel for plaintiffs whose 2-year-old son fell to his death through an allegedly defective apartment window in 2018 are continuing to pursue negligence-based wrongful death litigation against a pair of Pittsburgh landlords and the Allegheny County Housing Authority, reinstating the complaint twice in the last month with no response yet from the defendants.
Craig Edwards, administrator of the Estate of Roland Williams Jr. initially filed suit in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas on May 1 against Michael W. Gestrich and Carol J. Gestrich (doing business as “Liberty Management”) and the Allegheny County Housing Authority. All parties are based in Pittsburgh.
The defendants maintained a residential housing unit in Sharpsburg where Roland resided with his parents, Briana Edwards and Roland Williams Sr., the lawsuit says.
On the third floor of the unit is a room with two windows approximately six inches apart and located nine inches off the floor – which allegedly featured thin horizontal bars, but failed to have protective screens installed.
Despite an inspection taking place in November 2017, the suit says that this defective condition was not remedied.
On June 2, 2018, two-year-old Roland Williams Jr. was playing in the room and leaned against the windowsill in question, causing him to fall out of the window 23 feet to the ground and sustain injuries which proved fatal, the plaintiff claims.
The plaintiff says the defendants are liable for survival and wrongful death, and are seeking medical expenses, funeral expenses, estate expenses and other losses and recoverable damages in excess of $50,000, plus court costs and interest.
UPDATE
On June 9, plaintiff counsel filed a first praecipe to reinstate the complaint against all of the defendants. No response from the defendants was filed in nearly the whole month following that original reinstatement action, so plaintiff counsel followed by filing a second praecipe to reinstate the complaint specifically against the Allegheny County Housing Authority on July 8.
Defendants have still not yet filed any response to the litigation.
The plaintiff is represented by Peter D. Friday, Kevin S. Burger and John K. Bryan of Friday & Cox, in Pittsburgh.
The defendants are represented by Martin A. Durkin of Durkin Law Offices, in Philadelphia, plus Todd A. Gray and James M. Leety of Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith, in Pittsburgh.
Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas case GD-20-005447
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com