$3.86 Million Verdict After Stray Bullet Kills Sleeping Tenant at Decatur Apartment Complex
Won by Rafi Law Firm.
A federal jury awarded $3,858,548, including $2 million in punitive damages, after finding Eastwyck Village apartment complex liable for the death of tenant Tijuana Frazier, who was struck by a stray bullet that penetrated her bedroom wall while she slept.
What happened
In the early hours of April 6, 2019, Tijuana Frazier was asleep in her bedroom at Eastwyck Village, an apartment complex in Decatur, Georgia, when a bullet fired from outside the building passed through the exterior wall and struck her. She died from her injuries. Her mother, Mildred Collins-Williams, as administrator of her daughter's estate, filed suit against property owner Contour Eastwyck LLC, alleging that the complex had been plagued by chronic violent crime and that management had done nothing meaningful to protect residents.
Before trial, the litigation exposed what Judge Charles A. Pannell Jr. called an 'intentional, bad-faith strategy of ignorance' on the part of the defendant. Contour Eastwyck failed to disclose 42 employees, suppressed security logs, allowed emails to be permanently deleted, sold the property without preserving case files, and failed to secure computers for evidence retention. In a 368-page opinion issued in December 2022, Judge Pannell struck the defendant's answer entirely, finding that the spoliation of evidence made 'the truth utterly unknowable.' Defense counsel were sanctioned jointly and severally for attorneys' fees, with the court describing them as 'willing accomplices and enablers' in the defendant's misconduct.
With liability effectively established by the sanctions order, the case went to a jury trial in March 2024. Mike Rafi and his co-counsel presented evidence that Eastwyck Village had a documented history of murders, armed robberies, aggravated assaults, and firearm discharges on and around the property. Despite that knowledge, Contour Eastwyck failed to investigate criminal activity, warn residents of the danger, or put meaningful security measures in place.
In March 2024, the jury returned a verdict totaling $3,858,548. The award included $1,000,000 for Tijuana Frazier's conscious pain and suffering, $858,548 for the full value of her life, and $2,000,000 in punitive damages against Contour Eastwyck LLC. The case later closed with no reduction of the verdict reported in court records.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Daily Report Online (Law.com): 'Family of Woman Killed at Atlanta Apartment Complex Wins $3.8M Verdict' (Apr. 18, 2024)
- 2.PACER Monitor: Collins-Williams et al v. Contour Eastwyck LLC, 1:20-cv-03129 (N.D. Ga.)
- 3.Gravier House: '368-Page Opinion: Judge Strikes Defendant's Answer and Sanctions Defense Counsel' (Dec. 19, 2022)·Archived copy
- 4.Exlitem: 'Atlanta Jury Awards $3.8 Million Damages in Tragic Apartment Complex Fatality Case'·Archived copy
More proven verdicts from Rafi Law Firm
All Rafi Law Firm proven verdicts →Mike Rafi secured a $3.1 million settlement for the estate of Cynthia Louise Feijoo, a 61-year-old Albany, Georgia woman who died after her wheelchair was not properly secured in a medical transport van, with discovery exposing the transport company's false claim that she had been properly restrained.
A Fulton County jury awarded $1,718,367 in total damages after finding a southwest Atlanta convenience store 66% responsible for a shooting that left a sleeping passenger with an abdominal gunshot wound.
Mike Rafi secured a $1.6 million presuit settlement for a 69-year-old builder and jazz journalist who suffered a fractured skull and lasting neurological damage after an SUV driver reversed out of a driveway and struck him on a Decatur sidewalk while he was walking his dog.
A Gwinnett County jury awarded $1.5 million to a car-crash plaintiff represented by Mike Rafi and Alex Brown, but Judge Ronda S. Colvin vacated the verdict because Rafi had posted videos before trial discussing the case, prompting national legal-press coverage; the matter later settled.
Related wrongful death verdicts
In December 2011, a Fayette County, Texas jury awarded the family of an 8-year-old Splendora boy $150.37 billion after he was doused with gasoline and set on fire by a 13-year-old neighbor in 1998, two weeks after the same neighbor sexually assaulted him. The boy survived third-degree burns over 99 percent of his body for nearly 13 years before dying in April 2011 of a skin cancer linked to his injuries. The defendant, Don Wilburn Collins, never appeared to answer the civil suit, and the jury awarded $370 million in actual damages plus roughly $150 billion in punitive damages, the largest civil verdict in U.S. history. Attorney Craig Sico, who represented the family, said from the outset that the judgment was not collectible and was intended to pressure prosecutors into reopening the long-dormant criminal case. Prosecutors did reopen the case, and Collins was later convicted of capital murder in a separate criminal proceeding.
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.
Frantz Law Group, representing roughly 5,000 victims, helped negotiate a $13.5 billion PG&E bankruptcy settlement covering tens of thousands of survivors and families from the 2015 Butte, 2017 North Bay, and 2018 Camp wildfires.