Negligent Security

Published on: July 2, 2024

Lawsuit Filed in Case of City of Doral Police Department Officers injured in April shooting at Martini Bar

Two police officers with the City of Doral Police Department are suing a local bar, its managing company, a security company and one other after a man was allowed inside the location with a gun.

The shooting happened on April 6, 2024, at the Martini Bar Doral, located at 3450 NW 83rd Ave., Suite 144. The two officers, Andre A. Romo and Ricardo A. Acevedo, were patrolling the area on off-duty detail when a dispute broke out involving 37-year-old Jamal Wayne Wood who entered the bar with a gun. The shooting resulted in the death of a security guard and the injury of seven others, including the two responding officers. Wood was also killed that night by responding officers.

Acevedo and and Romo responded to the scene after seeing the chaos of fleeing patrons. Both officers were injured by the stampede of customers as they tried to get inside to stop Wood’s rampage. Wood aimed and shot at Romo and Acevedo and the other officers who responded to the scene. Romo was “dangerously close” to being hit and Acevedo was shot in the leg, mere centimeters from his femoral artery, according to a lawsuit filed Monday by Bernardo Pimentel II, a Trial Attorney with Leesfield & Partners, P.A..

Published on: August 25, 2022

$16 million recovery for hotel guest raped and beaten in open hallway while security watched

By Leesfield & Partners

In just 11 months, Partner Justin Shapiro secured a $16 million settlement for his clients, an elderly couple from New York who was savagely attacked while staying in a South Miami hotel. That day the individual defendant walked into the hotel, through the lobby, straight into an elevator to the 7th floor where he knocked on the couple’s guestroom door. As soon as the husband opened the door, the individual punched him in the face, lunged at him and pushed his way inside the guestroom before biting him on the back of his neck and strangling him. They fought for five long minutes before the assailant turned his aggression to the wife, chasing her outside the hallway, punched her in the face, knocking her to the ground.

At that time, three hotel and security employees showed up in the elevator. They stood directly in front of the aggressor as he continued to viciously beat up on our client. Our client was crying for help and bleeding profusely, but shockingly the employees did nothing. They let the attacker dragged his victim by the hair onto the elevator, she was helplessly screaming at the top of lungs as the elevator door closed.

Nobody knew on which floor the elevator had stopped but CCTV captured the rest of the most brutal sexual assault that took place five floors below. On the footage, the assailant is seen forcefully dragging the wife out of the elevator as she tried to fend him off. Ultimately he overpowered her, and punched her across the face over 30 times as he stood above her. In utter savagery he bit her face so violently that a large chunk of flesh ripped off her forehead. She was almost lifeless. He then ordered her to perform oral sex on him. She resisted him. He punched her again and again, strangled her, until she had no choice but to do what he said. It lasted several minutes before he forced himself on top of her and raped her in the middle of the hallway. When the police finally arrived to stop the attack, our client had endured the most horrific ten minutes of her life where she was raped, defaced and mutilated.

Published on: November 16, 2021

Back to back $25 Million Negligent Security Lawsuits filed for murder in gated community and for hotel rape victim

By Leesfield & Partners

Over the last 45 years, especially in the last 1000 days, Leesfield & Partners’ negligent security practice has seen first hand the dire consequences of the escalation of violent crime and the increasing number of innocent victims needlessly killed, battered, or raped.

The last two years have brought on much anxiety to all of us. The ripple effect of world economies shutting down has caused local economies and its people to suffer the most. The atmosphere of uncertainty has been a significant contributing factor to the resurgence of crime in our communities, especially the most violent crimes.

According to Statista, violent crimes are the worst they have been in the last 10 years. The number of aggravated assaults is the highest we have seen in the last 23 years, and the number of murders & non-negligent manslaughters has been this high since 1995.

Published on: June 18, 2021

Negligent Security and Client Safety

By Leesfield & Partners

Your clients (and family) must be protected, safe and secure, at shopping centers, apartments, gas stations, office buildings and hotels, including parking lots/garages and any commercial property where they may be vulnerable to crime. Leesfield & Partners represents victims who have been attacked, abused, injured or killed because security was inadequate. We are on the legislative and civil justice forefront of public safety.

MOST COMMON CRIME SCENES:

Shopping malls/strip malls

Published on: November 13, 2020

Turned down by prominent Florida negligent security firm, Leesfield & Partners secures 7-figure settlement in shooting case

By Leesfield & Partners

Josh was a broken man. Devastated from an unspeakable shooting tragedy that ravaged his family he was disillusioned from having his case turned down by Florida’s most prominent negligent security firm. When his personal family attorney tried to refer Josh to that other firm, he heard things like ‘impossible’, ‘a tragedy but not a case’, ‘likely to lose’, and then he heard ‘NO’. Those sentiments were terrible blows to Josh’s already gaping open-wounds. He felt completely and utterly hopeless.

Luckily, Josh’s well-intentioned family attorney did not take ‘no’ for an answer and reached out to Leesfield & Partners after having heard of the firm’s tenacity and success. Where others have said ‘no,’ Leesfield & Partners understood that this case was previously investigated and vetted and ultimately declined by this top negligent security firm. Having litigated and tried many negligent security cases, he was not going to let another law firm’s decision affect his independent analysis. Leesfield & Partners saw a family man who was hurt and grieving for his loss and promised that he would take a fresh look at everything and turn over every stone. Despite the daunting facts, bad law and a team of expert witnesses that were sure to be hired by the biggest defense firms in the country, Leesfield & Partners attorneys had a hunch. On that hunch, the Leesfield & Partners firm took on the case, immediately filed the lawsuit and began intensive litigation which lasted over a year. Through discovery and depositions, attorneys with the firm were able to prove that the assailant that killed his own family never should have been allowed to live on the premises in the first place. He successfully argued that the domestic nature of the crime, the cold-hard brutality and the assailant’s resolve to commit the heinous murder was ultimately irrelevant to the fact that he never should have been on the property in the first place. If he was not allowed to be on the property in the first place, he ultimately successfully proved that this incident would not have occurred.

Leesfield & Partners understood why the other firm turned down the case. It was a nearly impossible hill to climb. The entire Leesfield & Partners team takes a personal approach to each case they are working on. Even though we do this day in and day out, it is the client’s only case and it is their most important case. We take that to heart and pursue each case as though it is the only one we have. It is a philosophy that has served the firm and its clients well over the last five decades.

Published on: December 7, 2018

Airbnb’s vicarious liability and failures to vet dangerous hosts and properties

By Leesfield & Partners

After the horrific murder of Miami-resident, Carla Stefaniak, for which the security guard of the Airbnb where she was staying was arrested, it seems clear that Airbnb continues to fail its self-declared standard: “Your safety is our priority”

Assaults at Airbnb’s are unfortunately not uncommon. So much so, that a website called airbnbhell.com was created in 2013 and guests have been posting horror stories ever since, a lot of them involve violence and sexual assaults.

The fundamental problem with Airbnb’s business model is that Airbnb’s website funnels guests toward properties that were not vetted. And when the unthinkable happens, guests are not covered under Airbnb’s insurance because they fell victim to an intentional act, which is a known insurance coverage exclusion. These compounding failures and acts of negligence make the entire online hospitality services business model inherently flawed and utterly dangerous.

Published on: August 18, 2017

Negligent Security on the Rise in the Era of ‘Online Hospitality Services’

By Leesfield & Partners

Hotel, travel and tourism injuries rapidly increase with inadequate security and safety neglect on premises. Once again, Airbnb has been sued by a guest claiming another host at the property assaulted her. Of course, Airbnb and Vrbo do not do a background check which would have prevented this alleged sexual assault, nor do they have any security measures and typical keys, locks and door protection. This is a wide open area of vulnerability according to Leesfield & Partners Founding Partner, Ira Leesfield who chairs the American Association for Justice Resort Torts Litigation Group.

There are ongoing battle rages between the hotel/public accommodation industry and Airbnb about the increasing shift of travelers from traditional hotels to less protected “homey” environments.

Airbnb not only fails to check on the guest, but also does not run background check or security analysis of the host renters. The lawsuit filed by Leslie Lapayowker, and reported in The Guardian contends that a background check would have uncovered the fact that the owner had been arrested and charged with battery, and prevented from listing his property on Airbnb. The plaintiff alleges that she was held in a chair, against her will, as the host proceeded to masturbate in front of her.

Published on: March 26, 2012

Fontainebleau hotel security questioned after two sexual assaults in four days

By Leesfield & Partners

Miami Beach Police Department are currently investigating two cases of sexual assaults that occurred last week at the Fountainebleau. As crucial a priority security in hotels, motels and resorts in Florida should be, our negligent security lawyers and inadequate security attorneys’ experience indicates security in hotels is severely lacking and more often that not contributes to guests becoming victims to sexual assaults.

Over the last four days, two guests staying at the Fountainebleau were sexually abused and assaulted. The first victim, a 23 year-old woman, returned to her hotel room and fell asleep on her bed when she was awaken by a naked man who was laying on top of her. The woman fought the man off and screamed for help. The assailant took flight and the victim ran to her sister’s guest room next door and called for help.

Investigators of the Miami Beach Police Department reviewed the surveillance camera footage and had sufficient evidence to arrest the alleged assailant, Rafael Munguia, 26, who was also staying at the hotel at the time. The surveillance footage showed Munguia leave the victim’s hotel room naked and run to his own hotel room. On the evening of the assault, the Police arrested Munguia on charges of rape, and he confessed to raping the young woman less than 24 hours later.

The second assault occurred by the pool area of the Fountainebleau. At around 2am, the victim’s boyfriend left the victim by herself for less than a half hour. When he returned, he saw a man on top of his girlfriend. The subject had his pants down and was physically grinding on the woman in a sexual manner. Two hotel employees witnessed the male subject run off the hotel’s property wearing nothing but a pair of underwear and carrying clothes in his hands.
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Published on: January 30, 2012

Sexual Assaults of Hotel Maids due to Lack of Security

By Leesfield & Partners

In light of the sexual assault allegations levied against International Monetary Fund Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the security and lack of protection of chamber maids have become front and center in the recent months.

In New York, Assemblyman Rory Lancman introduced the Hotel Worker Protection Act, which aims at imposing on to the lodging industry to equip hotel employees, specifically maids, to carry a panic button at all times that would essentially alert hotel security in case of an emergency.

Leesfield & Partners has litigated and been involved in numerous cases where female hotel employees were physically assaulted and battered as well as sexually assaulted and raped. Recently, Attorneys at the firm represented a young woman who was brutally assaulted and raped in a hotel room that she was cleaning at the time. After several months of litigation, the defendant hotel reached a settlement with the young woman. The hotel’s liability was established when attorneys showed evidence of lack of hotel security which had allowed a vagrant to spend the night on the hotel’s premises without being seen or removed from the property. The vagrant was them allowed to roam in and around the hotel until he walked into the hotel room that our client was cleaning.

If the new proposed legislation becomes law in New York, it is reasonably likely that other states will follow. The State of Florida has a particular interest in protecting hotel employees because of the large revenues generated by Tourism, one of the biggest sources of revenue for the state. On average, there are over 80 millions of visitors to the State of Florida, which brings almost $20 billions to the state-wide economy.

A version of the bill introduced by Roy Lancman, if introduced in the State of Florida, would be judicious for the lodging industry to support to show its concern towards hotel employees’ safety and security. It would also act as another deterrent, beyond the presence of security guards in hotels.
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