Magistrate dismisses lawsuit

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

A magistrate has dismissed without a trial a lawsuit filed by an elderly woman who said she was injured when she slipped and fell on a mound of snow and ice between the curb and the sidewalk at the former Kimmelbrook Homes housing project, now known as Rockford Village, on the city’s East Side.

In a 13-page decision filed Friday, Magistrate Eugene J. Fehr of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court said the 18- to-24-inch snowbank was an “open and obvious hazard” that the plaintiff, Beatrice Winlock, was well aware of after residing in Ohio for more than 70 years.

Winlock’s lawsuit against the Youngstown Metropolitan Housing Authority, which operates the housing project, alleged the authority “negligently shoveled the snow, creating an unnatural accumulation,” and the lawsuit sought more than $25,000 in damages.

Winlock, who has moved from the housing project to Saranac Avenue, said she fell Feb. 1, 2004.

The lawsuit was refiled in October 2008 after the initial suit, filed in January 2006, was dismissed.