A state court jury in Fort Lauderdale returned a seven-figure award to a woman who suffered a severe ankle injury at an IHOP restaurant after the attorneys for the local franchisee only extended a settlement offer of $100,000.

Morgan & Morgan attorneys Carissa Peebles, Zeb Goldstein, Scott Henratty and Noah Pollock represented the plaintiff, Melissa Melvin, 47, who sustained the injury at the IHOP Sunrise location, operated by the defendant, Sunshine Restaurant Merger Sub LLC. They said the challenge was to project to the jurors that “this wasn’t just an ankle fracture.”