Andrew Holland (Of Counsel-Houston) obtained a unanimous defense verdict in Ulster County, New York, Supreme Court for an assisted-living facility after a five-day jury trial. The firm’s client operates an adult care facility with a memory care unit that must be secured to prevent the residents from leaving. The plaintiff’s decedent, a long-time resident, had advanced Alzheimer’s disease but was physically capable and ambulatory. The resident was seated in a chair that had caster wheels on the front feet to assist with mobility, but after he stood up, he fell, and the chair rolled backwards, according to the incident report, and he sustained a hip fracture requiring nail fixation surgery. After his hospitalization for the surgery, the resident was transferred into skilled nursing care, confined to a wheelchair and died six months later. The plaintiff called a Registered Nurse as her liability expert, who claimed that these chairs are dangerous because residents with Alzheimer’s and dementia forget that the wheels are there, creating a safety hazard. We called a mechanical engineer who performed a forensic analysis of an exemplar chair with wheels, as well as one without wheels, and found the slide characteristics and rotational balancing points to be virtually the same. We also called a physician board-certified in internal medicine and specializing in geriatric medicine, who testified that not only are these chairs acceptable under the standard of care, but the wheels are actually a safety feature insofar as they allow residents to move chairs independently while diminishing the risk of the user tipping over or sliding out from the chair. He believed it was more likely that the resident lost his balance or felt lightheaded after rising and fell backward, pushing the chair back. Lastly, we emphasized the fact that not a single witness put forth any evidence that a fall had ever occurred because a chair with mobility-assistance wheels rolled out, as the plaintiff theorized. The jury reached a unanimous defense verdict within 25 minutes of commencing deliberations.