Our client, an elderly woman, was a guest at a major hotel in Miami-Dade County on Mother's Day when she tripped over a dangerously elevated door threshold and fell. The threshold measured 4.595 inches in height. The maximum permissible height under Florida's building code is 0.75 inches -- the threshold was nearly four inches too high, a blatant code violation the hotel had chosen to leave in place. The fall caused a complex ankle fracture that required emergency transport, hospitalization, and open reduction internal fixation surgery. Mausner Group pursued the hotel ownership and management company for the code violation and the failure to warn guests of the dangerous condition. The case resolved through settlement for $325,000.
Florida's building code establishes maximum threshold heights for exactly this reason -- elevated thresholds are a well-documented trip hazard, particularly for elderly guests. A threshold nearly six times the permissible height is not a borderline case. It is a clear, documented, and indefensible code violation. Mausner Group retained an expert who documented the precise measurements and established that the hotel had been aware of available code-compliant alternatives and had chosen not to install them. The defendant's own decision-making process became the centerpiece of the liability case.
