Family Of Tourist Who Died After Fall In Theme Park Parking Lot Receives $6.25M Settlement

Some theme parks derive their entertainment value from creating the illusion of danger.  Just visit any of South Carolina’s ATV parks if you want the feeling of navigating rough terrain.  If you want sudden accelerations and sharp drops, ride the roller coasters at Family Kingdom.  If you are really adventuresome, you can try ziplining or bungee jumping.  All of these experiences are carefully designed, however, so that the dangers come just close enough to be exciting, but not close enough that they can cause injury.  It is harder, but still possible, to do this with entertainment that involves wild animals.  While you may not be able to control the creatures’ behavior, you can control how close people can get to them.  If you find out that Alligator Adventure Park in Myrtle Beach settled a multimillion-dollar wrongful death lawsuit, you might assume that one of the gators attacked a guest, but that is not the case.  In the past decade, there have been at least two fatal alligator attacks on humans in South Carolina, but these were not at theme parks.  Instead, the accident that led to the lawsuit was a more mundane case of negligence; it could have happened at a far less interesting place of business than Alligator Adventure Park.  If you have suffered injuries in a preventable accident at a theme park, contact a Columbia premises liability lawyer.

A Parking Lot More Dangerous Than Any Crocodilian

In the summer of 2021, John and Shannon Capodilupo traveled from Massachusetts to visit Myrtle Beach.  One of the attractions they visited was Alligator Adventure Park, but before they could catch sight of even a single crocodilian, disaster struck.  As they were walking through the parking lot to approach the front gate, Shannon tripped and fell on the uneven pavement, which was badly in need of repair.  She suffered a head injury that led to bleeding within the brain.  Her health worsened until she died of complications from her injuries in November 2021.  News reports did not indicate Shannon’s age or whether she and John had children.

Shannon’s husband John Capodilupo filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Alligator Adventure Park.  He alleged that the company was negligent in failing to repair or replace the pavement in its parking lot when it was no longer in safe condition for walking.  The lawsuit eventually settled for $6.5 million, which includes Shannon’s medical expenses, noneconomic damages for Shannon’s catastrophic injury, and noneconomic damages for John’s untimely loss of his wife.  This was an unusually large settlement, but this case, like most personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits, settled without going to trial.

Let Us Help You Today

The personal injury lawyers at the Stanley Law Group can help you pursue a complaint related to a trip and fall accident in a parking lot open to customers.  Contact The Stanley Law Group in Columbia, South Carolina or call (803)799-4700 for a free initial consultation.

Source:

heremyrtlebeach.com/north-myrtle-beach-settles-alligator-adventure-park-lawsuit/