In the article, Marlowe discusses how Wal-Mart is well aware of the frequent crime that takes place on properties across the country. The Haggard Law attorney litigated a case against the world’s number 1 retailer where a woman was kidnapped from a Wal-Mart parking lot and brutally raped in her kidnapper’s vehicle over several hours and miles of driving.
The text of the article as it appears in the Daily Business Review:
The Daily Business Review has just published an article featuring the recent $1.8 million negligent security case settlement delivered by the Haggard Law Firm.
In the article, Haggard Law attorney Douglas McCarron describes how the inaction by the property owners of a Tampa apartment complex who refused to invest in proper security measures despite pleas from property management, directly contributed to the shooting death of a 23-year-old father of three.
To read the full article click the images below or this link
Haggard Law Attorney Christopher Marlowe was interviewed and quoted in a just-released Bloomberg Businessweek article highlighting how Walmart’s cost-cutting measures may be directly related to an increased rate of crime at its stores nationwide. From rape to shoplifting, to kidnapping and murder, the article lays out how police are trying to corral the rampant crime in many of the nation’s number one retailer’s locations. A recent example in the last few weeks, police in Buffalo found a meth lab operating underground of a local Walmart store.
Marlowe fought Walmart for several years in a lawsuit he filed in 2010 on behalf of a woman who was abducted outside a store in DeFuniak Springs, Florida, and repeatedly raped. Marlowe discussed how Walmart made every legal maneuver to avoid releasing its in-house crime statistics.
From the article, Walmart’s Out-of-Control Crime Problem Is Driving Police Crazy By Shannon Pettypiece and David Voreacos:
Walmart’s lawyers typically argue that the company couldn’t have foreseen the crime in question and that it took reasonable steps to keep customers safe. It tries at every opportunity to keep its crime database secret. Even in litigation, when it must produce company records under court seal, its lawyers have wrangled for months or even years to limit access to its records, arguing the information is proprietary. “Nothing compares to the way Walmart litigates cases,” says attorney Christopher Marlowe. He fought Walmart for several years over a lawsuit he filed in 2010 on behalf of a woman who was abducted outside a store in DeFuniak Springs, Fla., and repeatedly raped. Marlowe said in a court filing that he learned only in 2013 of the database, which documented “precisely the sort of incidents” he sought for more than two years. Walmart’s lawyer, he said, “led everyone to believe that crime data retrieval was a great mystery—a query of inconceivable proportions.” Walmart denied liability in the case. The company eventually settled for an undisclosed sum.
Haggard Law Firm Attorney Todd Michaels was recently a guest on WEAA-FM 88.9 in Baltimore. Michaels was brought on the “Voice of the Community” to discuss his op-ed My Son’s Skin which was published in the Miami Herald. In the article Michaels discusses his concern as the father of a black child of what his child will face as he ages. The article was written following the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland in November 2014.
To listen to Michaels interview click here. The interview begins at 29:07.
Here is the original article published in the Miami Herald in December 2015.
My Son’s Skin
Op-ed by Todd Michaels
I’ve spent 38 years as a white boy and man in America. Actually, a Jewish man, but I’m not usually identified as a Jew, live in a place full of Jews, and I have never faced a minute of anti-Semitism. I can tell you that being a white man in America is good. It’s great. It’s all that it’s cracked up to be. The opportunity is limitless. The fear is minimal.
I’ve never spent one day as a Black boy or man.
I’ve spent 5 years and 4 months as the father of a Black boy. An amazing boy. A smart, funny, talented, cute, sweet boy who has significant opportunity and privilege and doesn’t know any bounds on what he can achieve. A boy that I’ve been able to protect thus far from the realities that a child like Tamir Rice has had to face. But I know I can’t protect him forever, and I know that at some point, and maybe at many points, he will face a different experience as a boy or man in America.
And I’ve spent a lot of those five years worrying. I never think about race. It’s never a conscious thought that the world sees me as white and my son as Black, or mixed, or whatever. I’m just his dad, and he’s just my son. But I think about it when things like Tamir Rice happen. And it makes me worry.
It makes me worry because I know that as Ashton grows, when he walks down the street, people won’t say, “There goes Todd Michaels’s son.” A lot of people will just see a Black guy walking down the street, with all that goes along with that. It’s only been five years and four months, and I’m exhausted of worrying. I can’t imagine the anger I would feel if I had to face that reality everyday.
So yes, all lives matter, but we don’t have to say that, because no one has ever questioned that white lives matter. But Black lives matter too. They matter equally. And until this country gets that in word and deed, America can never be what it claims to be.
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.”
The Haggard Law Firm’s William Haggard, Michael Haggard, Douglas McCarron, Christopher Marlowe, Todd Michaels and James Blecke have all been named to the 2016 Super Lawyers List.
Super Lawyers is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high-degree of peer recognition and professional achievement.
The patented selection process includes independent research, peer nominations, and peer evaluations.
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.
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.
It was the day after Thanksgiving. Two year old Soleila Estien was taking a nap with her father in the family’s apartment in Hollywood, Florida. Her mother Vahnessa was at work, and Grandma had just dozed off with a book. Everything about this beautiful Friday afternoon was warm and pleasant.
Dad was startled awake not long after he and Soleila lay down on the couch together. She was gone. As parents usually do when searching for their toddler, dad looked behind couches, in closets, and other such places where little ones amuse themselves with hide and seek. Not having found Soleila after a diligent search while calling her name, dad woke grandmom and the two began looking with greater urgency and rising concern.
They searched in the parking lot, around trees, under cars, throughout the complex and around the apartment complex pool, and their calls turned to cries and desperate screams for Soleila. Then they saw. On the edge of the pool there sat Soleila’s little flip flops. The outline of her little body was now apparent on the bottom of the pool..
The apartment complex where young Soleila died was an aquatic safety disgrace. The gates to the pool were neither self-closing nor self-latching. The laundry facilities were located within the pool deck area, prompting residents to leave the gate open so they could carry clothes baskets back and forth without bothering with the lock. When Grabiel pulled his unconscious little girl from the water, there was no telephone on the deck to dial 911. Against time and fate he tried CPR while carrying her back to the apartment, but she was dead.
Drowning is the leading cause of injury-related death for children one to four years of age. In Florida, drowning is the leading cause of all deaths for this age category, and Florida has the highest drowning death rate for children under the age of five. For obvious good reason, federal, state and local laws have addressed these preventable accidents by attempting to regulate the safe operation of residential pool facilities.
In Soleila’s case, for example, The City of Hollywood Code of Ordinances, § 158.04 reads, in pertinent part:
“Every outdoor private swimming pool shall be completely surrounded by a fence, wall, or enclosure in accordance with the 2007 Florida Building Code, and 2009 Supplement. Such fence, wall, or enclosure shall remain in place at all times and shall not be readily removable….All gates or doors opening through such enclosure shall be equipped with a self-closing and self-
latching device for keeping the gate or door securely closed at all times when not in actual use.”
The Florida Department of Health regulation 64E-9.006(2)(h) requires that:
“All public pools shall be surrounded by a minimum 48 inch high fence or other substantial barrier approved by the department. The fence shall be continuous around the perimeter of the pool area that is not otherwise blocked or obstructed by adjacent buildings or structures and shall adjoin with itself or abut to the adjacent members. Access through the barrier or fence from dwelling units such as homes, apartments, motel rooms, and hotel rooms, shall be through self-closing self-latching lockable gates of 48 inch minimal height from the floor or ground with the latch located a minimum of 54 inches from the bottom of the gate or at least 3 inches below the top of the gate on the pool side.”
Florida Statute 515.27 and 515.29 read in pertinent part, respectively:
“All doors providing direct access from the home to the pool must be equipped with a self-closing, self-latching device with a release mechanism placed no lower than 54 inches above the floor.”
“Gates that provide access to swimming pools must open outward away from the pool and be self-closing and equipped with a self-latching locking device, the release mechanism of which must be located on the pool side of the gate and so placed that it cannot be reached by a young child over the top or through any opening or gap.”
While these laws were written with the deaths of so many innocent children in mind, too many communities either ignore them or are unaware of their existence. Acutely aware of this reality, Vahnessa and Grabiel Estien have shaped their personal tragedy into a motivating force for change and education. Since that most awful day, they have managed the toughest feat that parents often have after losing a child – staying together. And together, they have put one foot in front of the other, as one, and their newly inspired lives are making swimming pools everywhere safer as a result.
Fast forward six years from the death of their beloved daughter, and the Estien family has been blessed with the births of two sons. Teaching them to swim and enjoy the water was a sacred priority for both Vahnessa and Grabiel. They did not want their boys to fear the water. But they were determined to ensure that their children respected it and that the adults responsible for aquatic facilities did their part to responsibly operate their pools.
After the civil matter relating directly to Soleila was resolved, the family started the Soleila G. Estien Memorial Swim Strong Scholarship. The family persuaded local businesses to fund donations for families who could not independently afford swimming lessons for their children. One of the most effective awareness tools for these businesses was the book Vahnessa Estien wrote in honor of her daughter, entitled “The Boy Who Could Swim.” It is a children’s book, written with as much heart, positive messaging and hope as any story borne of tragedy possibly could be. Parents can enjoy reading to their children a positive and enjoyable story of hope, courage and safety thanks to the courage Vahnessa had to write this book.
Vahnessa and Grabiel searched their souls after their daughter’s death. Somehow they managed, for the sake of their marriage and their sons, to find the will and power to harness their grief toward a positive goal. I am certainly proud of the work we did for the family and the outcome that was achieved. However, I am mostly thankful to the Estiens who, through their own grief process, are a constant reminder to me that what we do as advocates has the ability to contribute, even a little, to the manner in which our clients live the remainder of their lives after tragedies most of us would fear to even imagine. Certainly, doing what we do every day would be much more difficult, if not impossible, were it not for clients such as these, who through their efforts, are making the next tragedy less likely than those which came before.
Article first appeared in Southern Trial Lawyer’s Association’s newsletter JUSTLAW
