Sullivan v. AboveNet: DC Court of Appeals Reinstates $300,000 Sidewalk-Defect Verdict
A shattered shoulder from a walk down a DC street. A jury that heard the evidence and awarded $300,000. And a trial judge who took it all away after the fact. Late last month, the D.C. Court of Appeals put the verdict back — and in doing so handed pedestrians injured by broken sidewalks and roadways some of the most useful language they have had in years.
What happened
In Sullivan v. AboveNet Communications, Inc., 112 A.3d 347 (D.C. 2015), decided March 26, Stephen Sullivan tripped on a depressed section of roadway surface surrounding a utility manhole and fell, shattering his shoulder. He sued the utility responsible for the manhole area, and the case went to trial. At the close of the plaintiff's case, the defense moved for judgment as a matter of law under Rule 50(a); the trial judge reserved ruling, the defense put on its case, and the jury returned a $300,000 verdict for Mr. Sullivan.
Then the trial judge granted the reserved motion and erased the verdict — evaluating the case as if the record contained only the plaintiff's case-in-chief, frozen at the moment the motion was made.
What the Court of Appeals held
The D.C. Court of Appeals reversed and ordered the jury's verdict and award reinstated. Three holdings matter for future cases:
1. A reserved Rule 50(a) motion must be decided on the full trial record. When a judge reserves a mid-trial motion and the trial proceeds through the defense case, the court cannot later grant the motion based only on the frozen, mid-trial record. The whole trial counts. This procedural rule closes a loophole that let defendants effectively get two bites at erasing a verdict.
2. Constructive notice was for the jury. A property or utility defendant is liable for a dangerous condition it knew about or should have known about — what the law calls constructive notice. Here, a co-worker testified that she tripped on the same defect about two weeks before Mr. Sullivan's fall, and photographs documented the depressed pavement. That evidence, the court held, was enough to let a jury find the utility should have discovered and fixed the hazard, observing that notice questions of this kind are peculiarly within the province of the jury.
3. The plaintiff's expert did his job. Mr. Sullivan's roadwork expert sufficiently articulated the standard of care for backfilling and compacting utility cuts — the kind of work that, done wrong, leaves pavement to sink into exactly the sort of depression that caused this fall.
Why this decision matters
Sidewalk and roadway defect cases are quietly among the hardest injury cases in the District. Defendants — utilities, contractors, property owners, and the District itself — almost always argue that they had no idea the defect existed, and that nobody can prove how long it was there. Sullivan gives plaintiffs a concrete template for beating that argument: prior incidents (even unreported ones, proven through witnesses), photographs showing a longstanding condition, and expert testimony connecting the defect to substandard work.
The procedural holding is just as valuable. Jury verdicts are supposed to mean something. A rule that lets a trial judge disregard half the trial record when reviewing a verdict invites exactly what happened here — a jury's considered judgment wiped out on an artificially incomplete picture. The Court of Appeals said no.
What this means for injured people in the District of Columbia
If you have been hurt by a broken sidewalk, sunken utility cut, or crumbling curb in DC, three practical lessons follow from Sullivan:
- Photograph everything, immediately. The condition of the pavement on the day you fell is the single most important piece of evidence, and repairs often follow quickly after an injury.
- Find the witnesses. The co-worker who tripped two weeks earlier made this case. Neighbors, coworkers, and shopkeepers often know how long a hazard has existed and who else stumbled on it.
- Expect a fight about who owns the defect. Utility cuts, sidewalk squares, and tree boxes can implicate a utility, a contractor, an adjacent property owner, or the District — each pointing at the others, and claims against the District carry their own strict six-month notice requirement. Sorting out the responsible party early is essential.
Keep in mind that the District still applies contributory negligence, so the defense will argue you should have seen the defect and stepped around it. Cases like Sullivan are won with prompt investigation and careful trial work, not luck.
We investigate and try premises and roadway defect cases throughout the District.
If you or a loved one has been hurt, call Posey Lebowitz at (202) 524-0123 or send us a message for a free consultation.
Part of our DMV case law archive, compiled in 2026 to reflect the archive of some of the most important decisions in injury law.