$5.7 Million Settlement for Mother of 12-Year-Old Electrocuted by Fence at Fresno Apartment Complex
After trial: The case settled before trial and no appeal followed. The defendants' insurance and payment terms were not made public, and the defense did not confirm the amount to the press.
Won by Paboojian & Bell.
A Fresno mother sued the owners of the Villa Margaritas apartments after her 12-year-old son was electrocuted by a chain-link fence energized by an improperly installed surveillance camera wire. The case settled for $5.7 million in August 2019, weeks before a September 9 trial date. Warren Paboojian represented the family.
What happened
On September 28, 2017, a 12-year-old boy was playing football with other children at the Villa Margaritas apartment complex on North Recreation Avenue in Fresno. When the ball went toward a chain-link fence, he went to get it and touched the metal. The fence was live. He was taken to a hospital, where he died four days later, on October 2. His family, friends and former teachers held a prayer vigil near the fence that week.
City officials who inspected the property found the cause. A bare wire and a metal conduit installed to power video surveillance cameras had touched the fence and energized it. The camera had been put in by the complex's handyman without a permit or an inspection, which violated city code. Code enforcement ordered the property manager to remove the wiring or face fines.
The boy's mother, Victoria Antunez, filed a wrongful death suit in Fresno County Superior Court against the complex's owners, Jason M. Yamada and Chisato Janice Matsuyama Yamada, who live in Rolling Hills Estates in Los Angeles County. Warren Paboojian of Paboojian & Bell represented her. The suit rested on the unpermitted electrical work that city officials had already documented on an occupied residential property where children lived and played near the fence. Her son had attended Scandinavian Middle School, and those who knew him described a friendly boy who paid special attention to his younger sisters.
The case was set for trial on September 9, 2019. In August of that year, shortly before that date, the parties reached a settlement of $5.7 million, which GV Wire reported on August 21, 2019. The defense attorney did not respond to the outlet's request for comment, and the terms beyond the amount were not made public. The case never reached a jury, so there was no verdict and no appeal.
Paboojian said his client hoped the suit would push apartment owners to follow city code requirements. He described it as a warning to landlords to have repairs done by competent, licensed contractors. In the weeks after his death, Antunez said that when she saw her son's room, it was an empty room, and it was empty in her heart as well.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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Related wrongful death verdicts
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A Pensacola jury awarded Cynthia Robinson $23.6 billion in punitive damages against R.J. Reynolds over the 1996 lung cancer death of her 36-year-old husband, the largest single-plaintiff award of Florida's Engle tobacco litigation, but the trial judge called the number constitutionally excessive, an appeals court ordered a full retrial over improper closing arguments, and a second jury returned a complete defense verdict in 2019, so the estate ultimately collected nothing.
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