Jury awards $10-million more

The owner of Remington Apartment Homes is punished for failing to protect a tenant who was shot.

By DONG-PHUONG NGUYEN
Published December 17, 2004

TAMPA - Lai Chau has ringing in her ears from three gunshots to the head.

Owners and managers of the apartment complex that failed to protect her from abductors should suffer now, Chau's attorney told jurors Thursday.

"You got to make your verdict ring in their ears," Lyann Goudie urged.

Less than an hour later - and a day after awarding Chau $5.67-million in compensatory damages - the same jury decided that the Remington Apartment Homes' owner, Southstar Equity, and property manager Brookside Properties should pay $10-million in punitive damages.

"That would wipe them both out completely," Billy Gunn, an Atlanta lawyer who represented both corporations, later told reporters.

During closing arguments, Goudie estimated the two companies, affiliated with each other through mutual business holdings, to be worth about $500-million.

She said the companies only this month purchased an apartment complex in Louisville for $20.1-million and urged the jury to award punitive damages in that amount. Gunn argued to the judge that the Louisville sale never took place.

Midway through deliberations, the jury of four women and two men wanted to know how much of the punitive damages lawyers would receive. "This is not a question that you should be concerned with," Judge Sam Pendino told the panel.

Jury foreman Glenn Huff, a 42-year-old truck driver, said jurors didn't want to bankrupt the companies but concluded they didn't care enough about the safety of residents.

He pointed to testimony that showed that even after Chau was abducted and shot, cars continued to sneak through a security gate and a hole in a fence that had not been repaired.

Also, jurors were skeptical of a claim by Brookside CEO Bill Warfield that he didn't know how much his company wanted for Remington, which was on the market for part of 2003.

"He didn't answer the questions and kept beating around the bush," Huff said.

Goudie, a veteran criminal prosecutor and defense attorney trying her first civil case, had harsher words, calling the attitude of company executives "arrogant."

"It's outrageous how these people conducted themselves," she said.

During the trial, Goudie and fellow lawyer Fred Zinober hammered away at the security problems, from broken gates and unmonitored alarms to poor lighting and high crime.

On Dec. 13, 2001, Chau, then 20, was getting out of her Acura Integra shortly after 11 p.m. when she was forced back into her car at gunpoint. Her attackers slipped into the Remington's gate by piggybacking in after another resident.

They drove her around town for about half an hour before shooting her three times in the head and leaving her for dead near Forest Hills Elementary School.

The shooter, Jabari "J.B." Armstrong, is serving a life sentence. Tobaris Arrington, who also took part in the abduction, is serving a 17-year prison term. A third participant, Anthony Smith, was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Goudie and Zinober work for high-profile lawyer Barry Cohen, who said the awards in this case should open the eyes of property managers and owners who try to cut costs by cutting security.

If it doesn't make a difference, he said, they'll tackle other similar cases and ask for even higher awards.

Attorneys for Remington said they plan to appeal Chau's awards. The process could take 12 to 18 months, Cohen said.

[Last modified December 20, 2004, 18:52:04]