ATLANTA (Legal Newsline) – A Georgia court has affirmed a nearly $43 million verdict against CVS after a man was shot in a parking lot at one of its Atlanta locations.
The state Court of Appeals on Nov. 1 refused to strike down the $42.75 million verdict in favor of James Carmichael, who was shot multiple times in December 2012 by an unknown assailant.
Carmichael blamed his severe and long-term injuries on CVS for failing to implement simple security measures to protect customers like adequate lighting or security guards.
“At trial, many current and former Moreland Avenue CVS store employees testified as to the store’s conditions. Numerous employees testified that the store was located in a high-crime area,” Judge Yvette Miller wrote.
“CVS’s employees and managers considered the parking lot at the Moreland Avenue store unsafe, to the point that male employees regularly walked female employees to their cars. The employees would also park close to the building because of the spotty lighting in the parking lot.
Two employees respectively rated the safety problems at the store as an 8 and 9 out of 10. Three employees testified that they were ‘not surprised’ that Carmichael was shot on the premises.”
In December 2012, Carmichael was waiting on an acquaintance to sell him an iPad. He chose the CVS because he figured a large national chain like it would provide a safe environment.
Instead, someone put a gun to his head. Carmichael took out his belongings but had his own gun, which jammed as he tried to protect himself. The assailant shot Carmichael in the stomach, back and shoulder.
Carmichael ran into the store for help for collapsing into a coma for a month. He underwent multiple surgeries and has permanent nerve damage, hearing loss, speech problems and pain. His medical bills amounted to $725,800.
His lawyers ably presented the argument that CVS knew something like that could happen in its parking lot but chose not to act, the court ruled. Submitted as evidence were an armed robbery of a cashier, a purse-snatching of a customer and an armed robbery of an employee within two years of the shooting of Carmichael.
“CVS’s own employees, including its managers, considered the parking lot unsafe, and the store’s employees repeatedly requested security guards based on these and other incidents, but their requests were denied,” Miller wrote.
“From all this evidence, the jury could conclude the robbery of Carmichael was foreseeable to CVS.”
CVS attempted to blame Carmichael for selling the iPad there to someone who could have been dangerous, but the would-be buyer was not charged with the crime after initially being arrested.
“Thus, there was some evidence from which the jury could conclude that the attack on Carmichael was perpetrated by a total stranger and not by someone with whom he had a pre-existing relationship,” the ruling says.
The jury also failed to assign any blame to the unknown shooter and instead hit CVS with 95% of a $45 million verdict (Carmichael was found 5% at fault).
Since Carmichael shot first, “it is possible that the jury either found that the robber ended up shooting in self-defense and was worthy of no fault or that the jury instead assigned the amount of fault it would have assigned to the shooter to Carmichael instead,” the ruling says.