$2 Million Verdict for a Woman Held at Gunpoint in a Motel Room With Broken Locks
After trial: Affirmed in full. Judgment was entered September 25, 2009 and the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed on June 30, 2011 (No.
Won by Ogden & Associates, PLLC.
On June 27, 2008 three men burst into the room Shannon Poole shared with her partner Michael Keith Howard at the InTown Suites extended-stay motel on the edge of Jackson. One pistol-whipped Howard and then held the gun to Poole's head; another flipped the mattress with her on it and shoved her into a wall. She was left with contusions, lasting soreness and severe psychological injury. The motel knew loiterers roamed the property, that its fence was in disrepair and that its room locks did not work. A Hinds County jury awarded Poole $2,000,000 and Howard a separate $2,000,000, and the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed both in 2011.
What happened
Michael Keith Howard and Shannon Poole were living at InTown Suites, an extended-stay motel on the outskirts of Jackson, in June 2008 while they waited on a house in Belhaven.
At about 9:30 p.m. on June 27, 2008 Howard stepped out to walk his dog. As he returned, three men burst through the door of the room. They demanded money and ransacked the place. One of them hit Howard in the face with a handgun, then held the gun to Poole's head. When the couple said they had no money, one of the men flipped the mattress off the bed with Poole still on it, shoving her into a wall. Under the mattress they found several hundred dollars and took it, along with both drivers' licenses and Poole's phone. No one was ever arrested.
Howard was treated for broken facial bones and numerous contusions and lacerations, and needed facial reconstructive surgery before the case reached trial. Poole was left with contusions, bruising, lasting soreness and severe psychological injury. Both remained under the care of physicians and psychiatrists.
The case against the motel's owner, InTown Lessee Associates, was about what it knew. Strangers, trespassers and loiterers routinely came onto the property. The wooden fence around part of it was in disrepair. The locks on the guest-room doors did not work properly. None of it had been fixed.
The case was tried in the Hinds County Circuit Court, First Judicial District, before Judge Tomie T. Green. The verdict form required the jury to state a separate amount for each plaintiff, and it did: $2,000,000 for Howard and $2,000,000 for Poole. Judgment was entered on September 25, 2009.
On appeal InTown argued that the trial court should have applied Mississippi's $1,000,000 cap on noneconomic damages. On June 30, 2011 the Mississippi Supreme Court, sitting en banc in an opinion by Justice Kitchens (No. 2009-CA-01987-SCT), held that argument procedurally barred: InTown had never objected to the verdict-form instruction and had never asked for an instruction separating economic from noneconomic damages, and the court would not speculate about the split. Both $2,000,000 awards were affirmed in full, uncapped, in a post-2004 case.
James Ashley Ogden, James W. Smith Jr. and Wendy Michelle Yuan of Ogden & Associates in Jackson represented Howard and Poole.
The two awards are one incident and two injured people, each with a separately itemised verdict. Poole's $2,000,000 is the figure ranked here; Howard's is published as its own result.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
More proven verdicts from Ogden & Associates, PLLC
On June 27, 2008 Michael Keith Howard stepped out of his room at the InTown Suites extended-stay motel on the edge of Jackson to walk his dog. As he came back, three men burst through the door, hit him in the face with a handgun, held the gun to his partner Shannon Poole's head, and ransacked the room. Howard needed facial reconstructive surgery. The motel knew loiterers roamed the property, that its fence was in disrepair and that its room locks did not work. A Hinds County jury awarded Howard $2,000,000 and Poole a separate $2,000,000, and the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed both in 2011.
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