A Gladstone mother has filed a $3 million lawsuit against her apartment complex, arguing that a window-safety device costing as little as $5 could have stopped her 7-year-old daughter from tumbling three stories to the ground. Maci Pomykala fell from her bedroom window at Rivergreen Apartments, crashing through an insect screen before landing on hard, dry dirt below.
Maci’s mother, Lorrain Pomykala, filed the lawsuit in Multnomah County Circuit Court against Rivergreen Associates Limited Partnership and CSM Corporation, the owners and operators named as defendants, according to The Oregonian/OregonLive. Attorney Greg Kafoury, who filed the suit, said a $5 window-safety device could have prevented the fall and argued that landlords should install such devices before new tenants move in. Rivergreen Apartments is located at 19739 River Road in Gladstone, along a local golf course, and features one-, two-, and three-bedroom units, according to RentCafe.
A Hot Day, an Open Window, and a Fall
The fall happened on the hottest day of the year so far, with temperatures reaching 90 degrees, the lawsuit states. Maci had been sitting on the sill of her open bedroom window when she fell through the screen and dropped three stories to the ground below.
She broke her nose, bones around one eye, her forehead, and her arm in several places. Maci also sustained a traumatic brain injury with bleeding around her brain and gas trapped in her head, along with a fractured skull and brain damage, per the lawsuit as reported by the outlet. She now suffers headaches and faces risk of future seizures and lingering or permanent disability, though she plans to enter third grade this fall.
Building Codes and the Habitability Question
Kafoury contends that Oregon building codes would have required window safety devices for the bedroom window under today’s construction standards. Rivergreen Apartments was built in the early 1990s, before more recent code updates took effect. Under the 2022 Oregon Fire Code and state structural specialty codes, operable windows with sill heights below 36 inches above the interior floor and more than 72 inches above exterior grade must now be equipped with fall prevention devices or opening control devices complying with ASTM F2090 standards, which restrict openings to under 4 inches while still allowing emergency egress, according to the International Code Council.
Whether that modern standard applies retroactively to a complex built decades earlier is likely to become a central legal question in the case. Separately, Oregon’s Residential Landlord and Tenant Act under ORS 90.320 obligates residential landlords to maintain rental premises in a habitable condition and to comply with applicable state and local building, housing, and safety codes, a statute that could form the basis for the habitability claims regardless of when the complex was constructed.
Rivergreen Apartments defendants did not respond to requests for comment this week, the outlet reported. CSM Corporation, one of the named defendants, was founded in Minneapolis in 1976 by CEO Gary Holmes and has since expanded nationally to develop, acquire, and manage thousands of residential apartment units, commercial properties, and hotel chains across the country, according to CSM Corporation.
A Familiar Pattern of Window-Fall Lawsuits in Oregon
This is not the first Oregon case involving a child falling from a rental window. A Multnomah County jury ruled in 2009 that a Gresham rental company must pay $560,000 to a 2-year-old girl who fell from a second-story window. In 2014, the family of a 4-year-old Happy Valley boy sued a window maker and home inspector after a second-story fall and increased its claimed damages to $27 million before settling for an undisclosed amount. A 22-year-old Corvallis woman also settled a lawsuit against her apartment management company in 2016 for an undisclosed amount.
Kafoury has built a track record of high-dollar civil outcomes in Oregon, including a $9.3 million injury settlement in 2014 and a $1 million jury verdict in Multnomah County in 2023, according to Kafoury & McDougal.
The Scope of the Problem, Beyond One Apartment
OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital estimates that about 50 children tumble from windows in Oregon every year. Nationally, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission estimated that about 5,600 children under age 12 visited emergency rooms after window falls in 2024, and roughly one-third of those emergency-room cases that year required hospitalization. The commission also reported that at least 25 children died from window falls between 2021 and 2023.
Window falls account for an estimated eight fatalities nationwide each year among children age five and under, with falls spiking during warmer spring and summer months when windows are left open for ventilation, according to OHSU News. National injury data compiled by CED Technologies indicates toddlers account for two-thirds of window fall emergency room cases nationwide, with male children making up roughly 58 percent of reported victims. The National Safety Council warns that standard insect screens are built only to keep bugs out and lack the structural integrity to stop a child from falling through, a detail that matches what happened to Maci.
Low-Cost Devices, Widely Available
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recommends installing window stops and window guards, and OHSU offers the same recommendation. Window guards, which are bars across window openings that can be moved during emergencies, typically start at $40, while window stops start at just a few dollars apiece and allow windows to open only a few inches when activated. Window-fall-prevention groups also recommend moving furniture away from windows to reduce the temptation for children to climb up.
Locally, the Tom Sargent Safety Center at OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland sells ASTM-compliant window stops directly to the public for $7.00, part of an ongoing campaign encouraging families to stop window openings at 4 inches. Federal standards under ASTM F2090 require that fall-prevention devices installed on emergency escape windows include quick-release mechanisms an adult can operate without keys, tools, or special knowledge in case of a fire, balancing child safety against the need for emergency egress.
