The Haggard Law Firm’s Pedro Echarte and Michael Haggard have obtained a $3.85 Million settlement in a negligent security wrongful death case. The victim in this case was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting while entering an apartment complex.
The name of the Plaintiff, Haggard Law’s client, is confidential. The Plaintiff was the Personal Representative of the victim’s estate, who brought the case on behalf of the victim’s two surviving parents.
This was a difficult liability case as the shooting was a drive-by and occurred on a public road. Although the victim was entering the property where he lived when he was shot, the defendants were going to argue, inter alia, that the shooting was not preventable as it did not occur on the property.
The Haggard Law Firm was able to obtain the significant settlement after proving that not only did the apartment complex have a long history of violent criminal history, but a significant portion of that violent crime history was drive-by shootings. Echarte and Haggard argued that not only were security measures entirely inadequate at the time of the incident, but that there were measures that could have been taken that would have prevented drive-by shootings like the one that took the Plaintiff’s decedent’s life. These included but were not limited to a sufficient number of security guards and off-duty police patrols.
In addition, Haggard Law attorneys were prepared to argue that the property should have worked with local enforcement and local government to block off some of the streets around the complex where the drive-by shootings were occurring.
