A Serious Case of Premises Liability: The Lai Chau Case

Premises liability is a part of the body of laws concerned with the responsibility of the owner of a so-called “real property.” Real property is a legal term for a valid piece of premises or land where enough human effort was done for its improvement and development. Real property includes real estate homes, apartments, condominiums, malls, buildings, etc.

Any form of accident within the legal boundaries of a real property, resulting to possible injuries, is a valid case for claiming damage compensation through the use of premises liability laws. These laws are interpreted and used advantageously by personal injury lawyers to obtain maximum compensation.

Simple accidents like slip-and-fall accidents can occur inside one’s premises at the expense of the owner’s clean civil records. Thousands and thousands of dollars have been claimed by a multitude of victims of careless owners leaving spilled milk on the floor, foreign objects on the stairs, toys in the bathroom, etc.

But one particularly prominent case back in 2004 rendered all of these “common” cases quite trivial.

The case is known by lawyers as the Lai Chau v. Southstar Equity Limited Co. and Brookside Properties Inc. which ultimately awarded a total of $15.7 million to the plaintiff, Lai Chau. The case is not a simple slip-and-fall accident resulting from petty negligence to the owner.

The case is a grievous one involving the entry of two men who could have potentially abducted Lai Chau in her Tampa apartment complex, completely bypassing security in the process.

The illegal entry of the two shady characters resulted to Chau acquiring three bullet shots on the head, leaving the girl at the brink of death in an empty schoolyard. But Chau survived the accident with nothing more than a cracked jaw. The two men who shot her were carjackers

Although this could seem as a criminal case, it has civil implications because Southstar Equity Limited Co. and Brookside Properties Inc. has failed to provide the utmost care to Lai Chau who was in the premises that the carjackers has infiltrated. This failure to streamline security for those who are legally permissible within their property cost them the millions of dollars of damages.