Metro

Woman sues after slipping at Upper East Side bar — called The Stumble Inn

Well, they do warn you.

A woman is suing the Upper East Side watering hole The Stumble Inn — after falling down its stairs.

“Honestly, when I told my brother, he laughed at me,’’ plaintiff Diana Ortiz, 30, admitted to The Post on Tuesday.

But the mom of two said her injuries — a messed-up knee and ensuing herniated disc that required spinal surgery — are no joke.

“It still hurts,’’ she said of her back.

Ortiz had gone to the bar at East 76th Street and Second Avenue in Manhattan — her first time there — on a Friday evening in October 2018 to catch up with an old childhood friend who works nearby, according to the plaintiff and her Bronx Supreme Court suit, which was filed Monday.





Ortiz, who lives in The Bronx, drank a Yuengling beer as she and her female pal chatted for about an hour, she said. Then shortly before 7 p.m., the pair headed to the downstairs bathroom before going home, Ortiz said.

The stairway was poorly lit, and there were no signs warning customers to watch their step, she said.

“Between the second and third step, I just fell down the stairs,’’ said Ortiz, noting, “I didn’t have heels on. just like … boot[s].

“I was almost in shock.”

After tumbling down roughly 10 steps and hitting the wall at the bottom, “I walked slowly to the bathroom, and I checked [my left knee] out, and it was super swollen,’’ Ortiz said.

Ortiz, who works as a retail manager for the women’s clothing company Loft, said her injury developed into excruciating back pain over the next few months.





The mom of two boys, ages 5 and 7, underwent back surgery in April.

“They had to fuse the disks at that level of her spine, so there’s no longer movement in that particular area, which is a permanent thing’’ said Ortiz’s lawyer, Blake Goldfarb.

Ortiz’s suit says the bar allowed the stairway to remain “in its dangerous, defective, hazardous, unsafe, uneven, broken, worn, poorly maintained, dilapidated, inadequately illuminated and/or excessively slippery condition(s) … and carelessly failed to fix or remedy’’ it.

Both the lawyer and plaintiff acknowledged the irony of the bar’s name.

“When I tell people about my situation. … everyone is just shocked. They’re just like, ‘That’s such a coincidence, that it’s the Stumble Inn,’ ’’ Ortiz said.

Goldfarb, asked whether Ortiz would have read the big sign out front that says “The Stumble Inn,’’ replied, “Apparently not, because she got hurt pretty damn bad.”





He added of the establishment, “I invite them to make that defense. That would be great for the case.”

The suit does not have a money amount attached to it, but the lawyer said they would seek “a significant amount because of her injury.’’

A manager at the bar declined comment and referred The Post to a management agency, which did not respond to a message. A phone message left with one of the plaintiffs, Michael Asch, also was not returned.

—Additional reporting by Jacob Henry





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