The Haggard Law Firm‘s Todd Michaels will once again be among the faculty members of this year’s upcoming Al J Cone Trial Advocacy Institute. The Florida Justice Association seminar offers three full days of engaging presentations and interactive workshops designed to advance trial skills. Attendees go through the entire trial process from the defense and plaintiff perspective using a case fact pattern. The event will be held at the Gaylord Palms in Kissimmee Florida from August 3-5.
The Haggard Law Firm’s Michael Haggard discusses the first step of the investigation into a negligent security claim, nailing down the security history of the property. Haggard Law has litigated more than 200 negligent security / premises liability cases resulting in nearly $350 million in results in the last decade.
According to local media outlets in Miami, the Broward Sheriff’s Office responded to a report of a man shot around 4:15 a.m. Wednesday, near the 2800 block of W. Broward Blvd. at Club Pink South. 21-year-old Wendell Soliphar, who recently moved to the United States from the Bahamas, was leaving the club when he was shot and killed. A family member told CBS Miami that he believes Wendell was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The victim leaves behind an 8-year-old daughter.
Initial reports lay out some similarities between this case and a negligent security case litigated by The Haggard Law Firm a decade ago.
A pregnant woman was caught on video running down on alleged purse snatcher with her SUV in a Walmart parking lot in North Carolina. Christine Braswell, 26, told local media that she found the man rummaging through her SUV before he took off running with her purse. The suspect, Robert Raines, who was taken to a hospital with minor injuries, was charged with felony breaking and entering, larceny and misdemeanor damage to property.
Haggard Law Attorney Christopher Marlowe says this incident is another reminder that Walmart is yet to truly commit to addressing its well-reported security issues. “Walmart parking lots remain hot spots for violence and mayhem. This most recent event caught on camera in Asheville, North Carolina demonstrates how quickly a “nonviolent” crime can become a matter of life or death” says Marlowe, who was quoted in a Bloomberg Businessweek investigation earlier this year on Walmart’s consistent security issues (click to read).
He adds, “When auto burglary, theft and other ‘petty’ crimes are allowed to flourish in the vast concrete expanses that Walmart uses everywhere as its parking lots, more of the same will follow. Either meaningful security is there to protect customers, or dangerous encounters like this will remain the status quo.”
For her part, Braswell was charged with misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon.
Click to read article by Christopher Marlowe and Published in the Daily Business Review on WalMart Security Concerns as Published
The Memorial Day Weekend was marred by violence in Jacksonville. 14 people were shot, 4 of those died in 9 separate incidents of violence during the 3-day span.
Several of the shootings occurred at apartment complexes in the area.Todd Michaels of The Haggard Law Firm, which represents several victims of previous violence at the Eureka Gardens Apartments (click for more details), says many of the weekend shootings are a result of irresponsible property ownership.
In the last week, there have been a string of robberies at gas stations and parking lots of popular retailers in South Florida. A large percentage of the negligent security cases The Haggard Law Firm has litigated in the last decade have included violent incidents involving these types of businesses. Cases like Snell VS Family Food Saver II, CORP which occurred on the property of a gas station and Pilotos v. Ryta Food Corp which was a deadly shooting in the parking lot of a grocery store.
“Every business owner who holds themselves open to the public has a duty to assess the risk of crime occurring on their property, and to implement adequate security based on that risk. All too often, we have seen business owners fail to do so, and the result is both tragic and predictable. Unless business owners are doing their part, there is little that the police or individuals themselves can do to remain safe.”
Workplace violence tends to grab headlines because the thought of a coworker murdering or maiming colleagues imparts a sense of dread that we do not like to visualize in those around us every working day of the week. More frequent, however, are those crimes of opportunity facing employees in high-risk environments, such as convenience and liquor stores, fast food restaurants and check cashing businesses. The nature of their work requires large amounts of cash on hand, and such businesses are frequently located on major highways to increase foot traffic and customer counts. Those same factors that make the shopping experience easier for the customer help make committing these crimes easier for the would-be robber. The ability to enter the property in a car, and disappear rapidly into a sea of commuter traffic make apprehension much more difficult for law enforcement. Signage in the windows offering discounts and sales often blocks the view of passersby into the windows, making the observation of an ongoing crime more difficult. In the convenience store setting, Florida law acknowledges these realities through F.S. 812.173, the “Convenience Business Security Act.”
The Association for Safe International Travel reports that 37,000 people die in car accidents per year in the United States while another 2.35 million are injured or disabled. An estimated 180,000 people are driving for Uber. That number continues to grow. So with this kind of volume and activity it is inevitable that the number of accidents involving this driving service will rise.
So if a personal injury attorney’s client was injured in a crash involving Uber, what should the lawyer consider when litigating that case?
That is the topic of discussion that will be lead by Haggard Law attorneys Jason Brenner and Todd Michaels during this month’s Florida Justice Association Masters of Justice CLE program.
Uber Duber Do…Your Client Was in an Accident with Uber, Now What Do You Do? is one of the sessions that will be offered to attendees of the program as part of the Auto Negligence Seminar to be conducted on Wednesday, September 28th. There are a few more spots available for this seminar. To learn more about it and register click here. The FJA Masters of Justice Program will be held in Orlando from September 28th through the 30th.
Attending this year’s FJA Masters of Justice program is a great way to renew the excitement and focus on your mission as a personal injury attorney. Make plans NOW to register to attend to ensure you have the strategies and techniques in your toolbox that have proven to work for other attorneys in civil litigation cases. You’ll be sure to take away valuable information and innovative ideas that can immediately aid you in your efforts to assist your clients in their cases.
The article below from The Florida Times Union details the latest on a mass shooting at the Eureka Garden Apartment Complex in Jacksonville. The media reports that 7 people were shot by at least three gunmen.
Shots fired and people getting shot at the Eureka Garden Apartments is on ongoing problem. The complex has had multiple homicides and violent crimes over the past few years, including the murder of 22-year-old Christopher Cornelio (pictured above with his parents). Haggard Law Firm attorneys Douglas McCarron and Jason Brenner currently represent Cornelio’s family, including his young son, in a civil suit against the property’s owners. Cornelio was shot and killed at Eureka Garden in March of 2014. The ownership and management of the complex refuse to take the necessary steps to make the property even remotely safe.
Their indifference was also seen in a massive Code Enforcement sweep last October. The living conditions at the complex were deplorable. Sadly, this incident appears to be a result of wealthy corporation placing profits over the safety its residents.
From Jacksonville Times Union Article: 7 wounded in Eureka Garden attack; about 50 rounds fired, police say
….People were sitting or standing around a stairway to Unit 11 at Eureka Garden late Sunday when the gunfire began.
Gunmen opened up at 11:45 p.m., hitting seven people outside a building at the troubled Westside apartment complex as other bullets shattered and pierced the windows of a parked sport-utility vehicle nearby, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
Police said three gunmen walked up between the two apartment units across Altoona Court, just a few dozen feet off Plymouth Street at the west end of the subsidized apartment complex. They aimed at eight or 10 people “just hanging out” in front of Unit 11, leaving two in life-threatening condition, police said.
“They fired numerous rounds. It appears to be rifle rounds and from handguns, into the crowd,” said Sgt. Shawn Coursey, part of the Sheriff’s Violent Crime Impact team. “There was an infant in the crowd. Thankfully, the infant was not struck.”
The gunmen fired more than 50 rounds at the people before fleeing. Victims were taken to UF Health Jacksonville and Orange Park Medical Center, police said.
…to read entire article from Jacksonville Times Union, click here
When you argue that your client’s injuries could have been prevented through the use of reasonable security measures, the defendant will claim those measures are excessive or unnecessary. So what are reasonable measures, and how can you help the jury view the case through your eyes? You must first go to the crime scene and begin reviewing any security efforts that the defendant undertook.
A crucial part of evidence development in these cases is examining the premises and putting the security measures into context. For example, a client was stabbed to death in his aunt’s apartment complex parking lot as he went to the vending machines near the community swimming pool.1 The complex gave a rent-free unit to a courtesy security officer who was also a local police officer and claimed to perform three daily patrols around the property with an enormous dog and a pistol. She also submitted observation reports to management. I was deflated by this proactive security regime until the officer and on-site managers were deposed.
Through public record requests, I obtained the officer’s call schedule for her official police duties for the previous three years. The three daily patrols she claimed she conducted could not be reconciled with her documented obligations for the city police department. The nuisance crimes of vandalism and drug use at the community swimming pool were incompatible with her insistence that once she locked the common area amenities at night, the property was under control. And somehow her fellow officers failed to inform her of four robberies and a carjacking that occurred at the complex while she lived there. At trial, the plaintiff’s counsel was able to expose this façade, and the jury found the complex was 100 percent liable.
In another case, my client was shot in the face at a gas station near the Miami-Dade County Fairgrounds during the annual fair. My first few visits to the property were unremarkable, so I wondered how we could convince any jury that this ordinary gas station should have employed security. So we waited to visit again until the next year’s county fair.
By comparing surveillance video from a normal Friday night with video from the same time and date during the following year’s county fair, we were able to show the massive increase in foot and vehicle traffic during the fair. We did not advocate that there was anything wrong with the gas station itself – but we explained that for two weeks each year, it assumed an entirely different criminal profile, and increased security measures should have been deployed. Understanding your site will help you stay focused on the defendant’s duty to appreciate the foreseeable risk and act on it.
(Pictured: Attorney Christopher Marlowe)
Sometimes, when security is compromised, there will be a debate about whether armed or unarmed security was appropriate for a property. The jury is unlikely to punish a defendant for choosing unarmed over armed guards if the choice was based on intelligence and made after informed deliberations.
Other security decisions become central to the case. Premises owners and managers often use security vendors, who make recommendations for protecting the property against crime. The vendor invariably will have suggested implementing the most comprehensive security system, but the defendant chose a lesser program due to cost. Driving a wedge between the vendor and the property manager becomes very important, and you can do this with the assistance of either entity’s former employees. Defendants usually are not on the same page as their vendors about crime on the premises, the necessary remedies, or the rationale for the choices made.
Familiarity with crimes that occurred on the property is fundamental. Do not rely on crime statistics or grids. Read every police report from the property, going back at least three years from your client’s assault. What may appear to be a simple property crime can yield the greatest notice and foreseeability witnesses. For example, a police report showing theft of a cell phone from a vehicle may appear trivial and unrelated on its face. However, the victim of that property crime often will have reported it to management and felt violated by that intrusion, especially if it happened more than once. The best witness regarding notice of on-premises crimes may be a robbery victim who constantly complained to management.
As the defendant tries to distract your attention from the core issues, refocus the case on specific criminal incidents and what the defendant failed to do in response to each. Make sure to use police reports when deposing the defendant – it will force them to admit, repeatedly, that they either did not know of the crime or that they did not make any changes in response to it. Specific crimes will help you show the jury that your case is not about crime generally or in the city where the property is located – it is about crime on this specific property.
Negligent security cases can consume thousands of hours from inception to conclusion. You must contend with both criminal and civil investigations, witnesses who may reasonably fear retribution, properties in crime-ridden areas, and even clients whose presence at the time of the incident concerns jurors. To get past these difficulties, it is crucial to maintain your focus on proving that the defendant’s security measures were inadequate.
Learn more about The Haggard Law Firm by clicking here
Notes:
1. Almaguer v. MIG Pines Dev., Ltd., No. 08-50972 CA 21 (Fla., Broward Co. Cir., Mar. 25, 2010).
