$55.2 Million Verdict, $27 Million After Apportionment, for a 17-Year-Old Shot Nine Times and Left a Double Amputee After an Apartment Security Guard Walked Away From a Gang Party

Antonio Steward was 17 and a student at Alta Loma High School in the summer of 2006, living with his parents in an apartment complex on Arrow Boulevard in Fontana. In the early morning of August 26, 2006, he was sitting with two friends on a stairwell outside the building. About ten men were drinking and partying outdoors nearby, in violation of the complex's rules against loitering after 10 p.m. Among them was Roosevelt Turner, a member of the local Crips.

The complex contracted with Stratus Security Services for a guard. At about 12:30 a.m. the guard approached the group, told them there had been a noise complaint, and walked away. He passed Antonio and his friends without a word and went to his car to fill out his daily activity report. Turner came over to Antonio, tried to get a cigarette from him, and then shot him nine times, in the chest, stomach, testicles, shoulder and foot. Turner was convicted and is serving two consecutive sentences of life with the possibility of parole.

Antonio survived the ambulance ride, but the wounds cut off blood flow to his legs, gangrene set in, and both legs were amputated above the knee that same day. Over the following years he underwent 56 more surgeries, including operations that removed more than 40 percent of his stomach. He lives with pain in his shoulder, back, stomach and rectum, phantom pain from his lost legs, a restrictive diet and chronic digestive problems, and his doctors expect at least 40 more surgeries and a lifetime of infection risk. He walked across the stage on prosthetic legs at his delayed high school graduation in 2009. The prosthetics later broke in a fall and could not be replaced after his insurance changed at 21. At the time of trial he was 24, living with his parents in an apartment not built for his disability, and volunteering at Loma Linda University Medical Center counseling new amputees.

Antonio and his parents, Steve Steward and Annie Bessie Camp, sued Stratus Security Services, its owner Saly Antoon, a related company called A&A Protective Services and its owner Sherif Antoon, and the apartment's ownership and management entities, which were dismissed before trial. Gary A. Dordick of the Law Offices of Gary A. Dordick in Beverly Hills tried the case with Sandor C. Fuchs and James S. Muller. Judge John M. Pacheco split the trial into three phases. In the first, an alter-ego trial, the court found that Stratus and A&A were in substance one enterprise with commingled assets and employees, and that both owners would be personally liable. The plaintiffs demanded $10 million during the liability phase; the defense offered $2 million while the jury was deliberating.

The defense argued that the guard was only a courtesy patrol, the eyes and ears of management, there to report problems and close the pool and laundry room at 10 p.m., not to prevent crime. It disputed that the men the guard spoke to were the men who shot Antonio and called the shooting a random, unforeseeable act. The plaintiffs' security expert and gang expert answered that the guard should have recognized a gang party on the property, broken it up or called 911, stayed to observe, and at minimum warned the boy on the stairs to go inside. In the liability phase the jury found the security defendants 49 percent at fault, Turner 49 percent, and Antonio 2 percent.

In the damages phase, on June 13, 2013, the jury set Antonio's total damages at $55,151,509.72. Because California's Proposition 51 makes defendants severally liable for noneconomic damages in proportion to fault, the amount recoverable from the security defendants after apportionment is $27,024,239.76. Arch Insurance Group insured Stratus and A&A. Post-trial motions were pending when the verdict was reported, and no appellate decision in the case has surfaced. The firm describes the verdict as a San Bernardino County record.