The Haggard Law Firm’s Douglas McCarron has secured a $10 Million settlement in a negligent security catastrophic injury case.
The names involved in this case are confidential per the terms of the agreement. On the night of January 18th, 2021, the Plaintiff was asleep in his apartment located in Tallahassee. He was seemingly safe at home with his wife by his side. He was awakened by loud banging and the barking of the family dog. The Plaintiff got out of bed and put clothes on and walked to the front door of the apartment. The loud banging persisted as he approached the door. It only stopped when the Plaintiff got to the door and looked through the peephole. The Plaintiff said he only saw darkness when looking through the peephole. He cracked open the front door to further investigate. Within a second, the Plaintiff was shot.
The police investigation uncovered that the Plaintiff was not the target of the attack. Instead, it was likely the shooter was there to confront an unauthorized neighbor living in one of his family member’s apartments.
The bullet struck the Plaintiff in the chest and changed his life forever. He immediately lost sensation in his lower extremities and fell to the ground. The young man was rushed to the hospital, and only the heroic efforts of emergency personnel and doctors prevented this from being a wrongful death case.
The Plaintiff has been left a paraplegic.
The apartment complex’s security measures at the time of the shooting and in the several years before were wholly inadequate. The tenants and their guests were on their own. At only 26 years of age, Plaintiff suffered catastrophic injuries leaving him a T4 paraplegic.
The reported crimes within the quarter mile of the complex include armed robberies, assaults, batteries, burglaries, auto thefts, drug violations, prostitution, sexual batteries, and trespassing. All of these crimes are indicators of future crime as well as other more serious types of violent crime. Specifically, in the few short years leading up to the Plaintiff being shot, there was a number of violent crimes (armed robbery, aggravated assault, assault, batteries) that occurred within the apartment complex. The types and frequency of these crimes served as notice to the Defendants that people were entering the community who did not belong and committing crime within it.
Despite the alarming crime rate, the Defendants only hired manned security for the property for 18 hours per week at a cost of $162.
Minimal patrols at night, no access control, abhorrent lighting, and no surveillance cameras – was the security program for the complex. These failures led to this senseless and tragic shooting.
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