College student Lai Chau told a Florida jury that she was rented at the Remington Apartment Homes because of its security gate and alarms. The security gate was slow-moving (perhaps because of fear of liability for damage caused by the alternative), and cars would sometimes “piggyback” through the open gate. Nevertheless, despite this, and despite hundreds of police calls to the neighborhood, poor lighting in the complex, and the fact that the complex’s security patrol was cancelled in January 2001 to save money, Chau renewed her lease in the summer of 2001, perhaps because apartments rent for only a few hundred dollars a month. In the lease, which the jury was not allowed to see, Chau agreed that the complex was not responsible for security. Chau also complained to the jury that the complex never told her about violent crime in the area; the jury was apparently infuriated by executive testimony acknowledging this with the statement that the owners and managers didn’t feel it was their obligation to do so.

In December 2001, Jabari Armstrong, high on cocaine and fresh off a 44-month sentence for carjacking and armed robbery, his stepbrother, and another accomplice previously convicted of carjacking, snuck into the complex and carjacked and kidnapped Chau. Armstrong shot Chau three times in the head; miraculously, she survived, with only hearing loss and some scars. The three criminals have been convicted, the shooter sentenced to life.

Chau, who had previously been robbed and pistol-whipped while working at her father’s restaurant, also asked the jury to compensate her for nightmares and post-traumatic stress disorder. The jury awarded $5.7 million in compensatory damages, including $4 million for pain and suffering.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers asked for punitive damages. They noted that the complex hadn’t immediately fixed a hole in the fence that was there last month. They argued punitive damages should be $20 million, because the owner, South Star Equity, paid that much for an apartment complex in Louisville. (Question: doesn’t this punish South Star Equity for buying an apartment complex, as opposed to punishing them for damage caused by failing to enclose an existing complex in a magic bubble?) The jury awarded another $10 million in punitive damages, which the defendants say will bankrupt them.

One sympathizes with Chau, but it’s hard to see why apartment owners and managers should be responsible. Even if Chau was somehow misled when she first rented the apartment (we don’t know for sure: the apartment owners reasonably claim that they never promise absolute safety and the leasing agent who talked to Chau wasn’t allowed to testify), she renewed the lease a year later, and both times agreed the complex wasn’t responsible for security. The rents the complex charged her reflected their understanding that they weren’t responsible for her security. Making apartment owners and managers financial guarantors for security in high-crime areas can only make consumers worse off: owners will simply refuse to invest in such neighborhoods, or will refuse to provide any security so they can’t be blamed when the measures they do take fail. To provide the kind of security necessary to avoid any crime, owners would have to price their apartments higher than people would want to pay to live in a high-crime neighborhood. The plaintiff’s attorneys (from the firm of Barry Cohen (Dec. 29)) claim that another $12-$13/month in rent would’ve made the complex safe. Though I don’t know how many apartments are in the complex, that number seems implausibly low to pay for a quality 24-hour security patrol. (Moreover, if the complex could afford to raise rents $12/month without losing customers, simple economics would tell us they would have done so.) The St. Petersburg Times assigned to the trial the reporter who covered Chau’s recovery, and the resulting slant from the coverage is unfortunate. (Michael Fechter, “Abduction Suit Nets $5.7 Million”, Tampa Tribune, Dec. 16; Michael Fechter, “Jury Gives $10 Million More In Security Suit”, Tampa Tribune, Dec. 17; Dong-Phuong Nguyen, “Jury awards $10-million more”, St. Petersburg Times, Dec. 17; Dong-Phuong Nguyen, “Carjack victim awarded millions”, St. Petersburg Times, Dec. 16; Michael Fechter, “Apartment Complex Unsafe, Lawyer Says”, Tampa Tribune, Dec. 15; Dong-Phuong Nguyen, “Victim: Complex misled her on security”, St. Petersburg Times, Dec. 10; Dong-Phuong Nguyen, “Abducted and shot, survivor now sues”, St. Petersburg Times, Dec. 3; Kathryn Bursch, WTSP, Dec. 16; Amy Herdy, “Missing man now accused in shooting”, St. Petersburg Times, Jan. 5, 2002). See also our Mar. 7 entry.

Filed under: crime and punishment