Settlement comes in contrast to resolution of lawsuit in similar case in 2023
With a unanimous vote on Sept. 8, the Sarasota County commissioners agreed to pay $30,000 to settle a lawsuit filed against the county by a woman who had tripped over an uneven portion of the sidewalk along Midnight Pass Road on Siesta Key and fell, suffering multiple injuries.
County Attorney Joshua Moye summarized a memo that he had sent to the board members, which was included in the agenda packet for the day’s meeting in Venice.
Commissioner Tom Knight made the motion for the settlement, which the Office of the County Attorney had recommended, and Commissioner Mark Smith seconded it. None of the board members commented on the issues before the vote.
Commissioner Joe Neunder was absent from the meeting.
The memo explained that the incident involving Melanie Hay — who was 60 at the time — occurred on Oct. 20, 2021. When she tripped, she fell to the concrete, the document said. The resulting injuries were primarily to her leg, knee, hand and head, the memo pointed out. “[S]he sought and received treatment from several physicians including surgery,” it added.
Hay “suffered contusions, strains, and lacerations,” as well as “exacerbation of preexisting pain and degenerative conditions,” along with “a torn meniscus in her left knee,” the memo said.
“She received follow-up treatment from several providers in Ohio … over the course of three years,” the memo continued. “Her claimed medical bills totaled approximately $75,000, of which approximately $17,000 [was] subject to health insurance liens,” the memo noted.
“If this matter goes to trial,” the memo pointed out, “she will allege a permanent injury, based on the opinion of her physicians and surgeons, as well as ongoing pain and suffering, leading to additional non-economic damages.”
Then the memo explained, “The parties participated in pre-trial settlement negotiations,” which resulted in the $30,000 figure. Moreover, the memo said, “Each party is responsible” for its own attorneys’ fees.
Assistant County Attorney Neal Addison was the lead counsel for the county, it added. The county website says Addison joined the Office of the County Attorney in April 2025. He earned his law degree from the Boston University School of Law in 2014, it notes.
A contrast to a similar case
The settlement with Hay contrasted with county action in a similar case, which went to trial in 2023, as The Sarasota News Leader reported.
In late February 2020, a woman who was a county resident reported that she was walking on a sidewalk in Palmer Ranch when she tripped, fell and “suffered serious injuries,” including head trauma and a laceration to her forehead.
Elizabeth Whalen claimed in a complaint filed in November 2020 in the 12thJudicial Circuit Court that Sarasota County was at fault, because one section of the sidewalk was higher than the other by about 1 inch. That segment previously had been ground down, but it had risen again because of growth of a root of a Southern live oak planted next to the sidewalk, as then-County Attorney Frederick “Rick” Elbrecht explained to the County Commission in a March 30, 2023 memo.
Ultimately, following a civil trial in late March, with Circuit Judge Hunter Carroll presiding, a jury agreed that the county was not negligent, Elbrecht reported to the county commissioners during their regular meeting on April 11, 2023.
Staff of the Office of the County Attorney had checked county work orders and determined that the Palmer Ranch sidewalk was repaired “at or near the trip location” in May 2019, about nine months before the incident occurred, Elbrecht added in his memo to the board.
Whalen, too, had contended that the county was negligent because it had failed to “use reasonable care in maintaining [the sidewalk] in a reasonably safe condition that would prevent it from being a dangerous and unsafe condition for business invitees,” as her complaint said.
Because of that negligence, the complaint continued, she “suffered bodily injury, great physical pain and suffering, disability, inability and loss of capacity for the enjoyment of life, inconvenience, physical impairment, disfigurement, scarring, mental anguish, loss or diminution of earnings or earning capacity, aggravation of an existing disease or physical defect, permanent injury within a reasonable degree of medical probability, medical and related expenses in the past and in the future incurred in seeking a cure for her injuries.”
Details of the Hay complaint
Hay filed her complaint against the county on March 28, 2025, the News Leader found through a review of the case docket.
Then, on July 22 of this year, Assistant County Attorney Addison filed a formal notice that the county had proposed a settlement with Hay.
Her attorney, Mark Packo of GED Lawyers LLP in Boca Raton, explained in the 11-page filing that Hay — of Marne, Ohio — “was utilizing the public sidewalk along Midnight Pass Road … for its intended purpose as a pedestrian walkway when she encountered an elevation change between sidewalk flags which greatly exceeded [1 inch]. Upon information and belief,” the complaint continues, “an elevation change of this amount between sidewalk flags violates [the county’s] own sidewalk maintenance standards.”
Packo further noted that the county “owns, operates, maintains and/or controls” Midnight Pass Road, which also is identified as County Road 758.
The county, he continued, “owed a duty to all pedestrians utilizing the sidewalk for its intended purpose, in general, and to [Hay], in particular, to maintain the sidewalk in a reasonably safe condition such that persons utilizing the sidewalk would not be injured.”
Moreover, he wrote, county staff “negligently failed to warn [the public] that any and all unsafe, hazardous and dangerous condition(s) existed on its public sidewalk on or about October 20, 2021.”
Packo further described the relevant area of the incident as “[constituting] a hidden trap …”
As a result of her fall, Packo pointed out, Hay suffered injuries that “are either permanent or continuing …”
Attached to the complaint was a form that GED Lawyers submitted to county staff on Nov. 4, 2021. That explained that Hay “took a fall landing on her front left side.”