Opa Locka, Florida – The owners of the Top Value Supermarket in Opa Locka have agreed to a payout of $1 million to the Estate of Miguel Pilotos, who was gunned down on the property during a robbery Aug. 21, 2013.
The 71-year-old man was simply picking up groceries when he was shot at the supermarket located on Northwest 137th street and northwest 27th avenue. The crime was caught on camera. The gunman rode up to the victim’s car on a bicycle and pulled out his weapon and shot the husband and father in the neck. Pilotos, who had under $20 on him when he was killed, had been with his wife Aleida for 25 years. He emigrated from Cuba 19 years ago.
The lawyer for the Pilotos family, Todd Michaels of The Haggard Law Firm, says the crime was predictable and preventable. “At the time of his murder, Miguel Pilotos was the third Top Value customer robbed and shot and the second one killed in that parking lot, in six months” says Michaels. He adds “despite the previous crimes, and the widespread knowledge the business was located in a high-crime area, the supermarket did not alter security in the parking lot in any way.”
In my experience, the most common condition in any premises liability case is the lack of guardianship of the property. In most instances, the property owner and/or manager fails to put in place policies and procedures that ensure that the premises is kept in a reasonably safe condition. For example, in many negligent security cases it becomes obvious that the owner and management fail to do anything that assesses violent crime occurring at the property. Without knowing what type of crime is happening, it is nearly impossible to know what type of security measures are needed. How can the owner make decisions about access control, manned security, and surveillance cameras, if they have failed to gather the crime statistics for the property and the surrounding area? The answer is simple, they do not know and consequently violent crime continues to victimize the property’s guests and invitees. In slip and fall cases, many properties fail to ensure that their employees follow the internal policies and procedures to maintain the property in a safe manner. This leads to dangerous conditions being left on the property for an unacceptable amount of time.
If property owners simply prepare policies and procedures for their employees to follow and have appropriate supervision to ensure that the policies and procedures are being followed, then the most dangerous conditions would cease to exist. Obviously, financial considerations come into play for the property owners. In developing a premises liability case, it is important to discover exactly what property owners are failing to do and why they are failing to do it. Jurors do not appreciate property owners turning a blind eye and pleading ignorance. Jurors also do not accept that the owners do not want to put the necessary resources (money) into the property to make it safe.
Just today, my partner Todd Michaels, secured a $2.65 million dollar verdict in a negligent security case in Clay County, Florida. The facts of the case demonstrated that the property knew that there was a upswing in crime at the property. Instead of being proactive, the property owner allowed the access control gates to remain broken for over 6 months. The property owner’s failure caused the death of our client during a burglary attempt to his sister’s home. This is a prime example of how juries will find for a victim in light of a property owner refusing to make their property safe.
As discussed, when preparing a premises liability case, it is extremely important to go through what policies and procedures a property owner has put into place and whether they are being followed. Just as important is why a property owner is failing to take the reasonable steps to make sure that the property is safe. Get all written policies and procedures as soon as possible – send written discovery requesting this information with the filing of the Complaint. Follow this with detailed depositions of management and the property employees. Armed with this information, it will become easy to show that the property owner and/or management dug their head in the sand and were at fault for your client’s injury or death.
The Haggard Law Firm’s Todd Michaels has been selected as the Chair of the Florida Justice Association’s Rental Car Committee.
The Committee is responsible for drafting any proactive legislation that the FJA would like to pursue, assist staff in drafting position papers and amendments and to act as an advisory group during the state’s legislative session on issues within the expertise of its members.
Michaels is currently an FJA board member, is on the organization’s executive committee and is the Miami-Dade County Vanguard Chair .
The FJA is dedicated to strengthening and upholding Florida’s civil justice system and protecting the rights of Florida’s citizens and consumers.
The FJA believes that all Floridians benefit when deserving individuals have a fair chance to seek justice in our state’s courts and that Florida’s consumers are made safer when large corporations and industries are held to a high ethical standard and accept fair responsibility for their actions.
FJA works in the legislative, political and public arenas to ensure that Floridians know and understand the importance of their rights to justice and to make certain that these rights, which are at the very core of what it means to be American, are safeguarded and protected.
The Kendall Gazette recently published an article that includedMichael Haggard‘s induction into the Palmer Trinity School Athletic Hall of Fame.
Haggard graduated from the school in 1988. He played varsity football and baseball and was recognized as an All-Dade selection in both sports his senior year
Haggard Law Conducts Negligent Security Seminar During the FJA Convention this Week
Todd Michaels lead a seminar yesterday during the 2016 Florida Justice Association’s Annual Convention in Palm Beach. Michaels discussed the ins and outs of trying a negligent security case in Florida.
The seminar was part of the FJA’s Young Lawyers Seminar Series. Michaels is currently an FJA board member, the Miami-Dade County Vanguard Chair and will begin a term on the organization’s Executive Committee next week.
Recently, Michaels delivered a $1 million settlement to the family of Miguel Pilotos in a negligent security case. The 71-year-old was gunned down in a supermarket parking lot in 2013. In the last 10 years, The Haggard Law Firm has handled over 150 negligent security cases and delivered over $340 million in verdicts and settlements in those cases.
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.
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Notes:
1. Almaguer v. MIG Pines Dev., Ltd., No. 08-50972 CA 21 (Fla., Broward Co. Cir., Mar. 25, 2010).
CASE RESULT: Continental Real Estate Companies among defendants in $3.1 million settlement innegligent security case
21 year old shot and killed while his first child is born.
Miami, Florida – Bad lighting, broken cameras, and other insufficient security measures have lead a Miami nightclub, Continent Real Estate Companies, and others to settle with the family of a murder victim for $3.1 million in a civil case.
On November 28th, 2011 Charles Lucas, Jr. was trying to diffuse an argument between his friends and several patrons of the Kaffe Krystal Night Club in Miami (2550 NW 72nd Avenue #305, Miami, FL 33122) following a car crash in the Club’s parking lot. Lucas was shot during that argument and later died at Baptist Hospital.
While the 21-year-old was fighting for his life, his first born child was born at a separate hospital. He was trying to leave the club/strip mall after receiving a text message that his girlfriend was going into labor.
Todd Michaels of The Haggard Law Firm and Alan Goldfarb of Alan Goldfarb, P.A. argued that the club, strip mall owners, management company and security company hired to police the property did not take the necessary security steps needed to prevent the shooting despite its location in a well-known high crime area.
