The City of Cleveland has quietly piled up nearly $400,000 in outside legal fees while fighting over its role in the 2017 Warehouse District balcony fall that left a young woman catastrophically injured. Megan Keefe suffered permanent, life-altering injuries after a March 17, 2017 plunge from a second-floor balcony at a West 6th Street club, and the question of who is ultimately responsible has dragged through years of filings and depositions. With fresh complaints and ongoing discovery, the case remains on the court’s docket and is still pointed toward the fall.
City legal tab and discovery
The city has paid more than $392,000 to outside counsel and reported producing over 53,000 documents in discovery, according to FOX 8. Those bills reflect the city’s effort to defend several inspectors named in a recent complaint that alleges officials were aware of safety code problems at the club for years.
How the fall unfolded
On St. Patrick’s Day 2017, Keefe, then 20 years old, fell through a loose panel on a second-floor balcony at Spirits and hit a granite counter below, suffering a traumatic brain injury along with other life-changing wounds, according to court filings. Court documents filed by the Keefe family detail the injuries and allege the railing was “grossly unsecured.” Local coverage at the time reported the bar was cited and temporarily closed while investigators examined the scene, and WOIO/Cleveland 19 covered both the initial lawsuit and the agency citations.
Settlement with owners, separate claims against the city
The bar and some property owners previously reached a roughly $22 million settlement that resolved the family’s civil claims, with money set aside for medical care and other expenses, according to reporting that reviewed the agreement. IrishCentral summarized the settlement and how it was distributed after local outlets reported its approval in probate court.
Bar status and the city’s response
The club on West 6th Street remains closed, and city leaders have pursued nuisance complaints after a series of incidents and code violations, News 5 Cleveland reported. The mayor’s office told FOX 8 that it is “working through the litigation process in alignment with the schedule set by the court.”…