Haggard Law Firm trial lawyer Pedro Echarte has finalized the terms of a $1 million settlement in a negligent security/wrongful death case where the victim was the father of five.
Haggard Law represented the plaintiff’s decedent who was murdered in an attempted armed robbery while speaking on the phone outside of his apartment complex in Pompano Beach, Florida on January 31 of 2017. Liability centered around the apartment complex’s lack of security measures at the apartment (including, but not limited to, inadequate lighting, lack of surveillance cameras, and lack of access control) despite a history of crime in the surrounding neighborhood. Plaintiff’s decedent left one surviving son here in the United States and a surviving widow in Honduras along with five surviving daughters. The defendant settled for policy limits.
Click here to connect with Pedro Echarte
While there was not very much crime at the 12-unit apartment complex, the surrounding area had several prior violent crimes, including armed robberies. Plaintiff was able to show that many of the residents in the area were Hispanic immigrants (many of which were undocumented), who were often targeted in robberies. Plaintiff’s decedent was an undocumented immigrant, like the majority of tenants in the Defendant’ apartment complex. Plaintiff’s position was that despite the lack of violent crime occurring on the property in the years leading up to the subject murder, this crime was foreseeable in light of the frequency and nature of crimes in the immediate surrounding neighborhood.
In the video below, Echarte explains some of the most common areas of property safety negligence he has seen over years of litigated negligent security cases:
