Car Wash Held 75 Percent At Fault For A Customer's Fatal Shooting
After trial: Kokomo Key Properties, Inc. appealed to Florida's First District Court of Appeal (No. 1D2024-1060). The court heard oral argument on October 14, 2025 and affirmed per curiam on October 24, 2025, so nothing was disturbed. The ranked figure is arithmetic on the reported verdict, not a reported judgment: no source reviewed states the final judgment as entered. The jury returned $3,750,000 to each of the two children and $9,000 in funeral expenses, $7,509,000 in total, and assigned the decedent 25 percent of the fault, and Fla. Stat. 768.81 diminishes the award proportionately, which leaves $5,631,750. awarded_amount_value records the full verdict. No source reviewed reports whether the judgment has been paid. Two details are contested and were generalized: the Gainesville Sun and Mainstreet Daily News both put the verdict on Wednesday, December 6, 2023 while MoreLaw's abstract says December 8, 2023, and WCJB gives Hopkins' age as 36 while the Gainesville Sun says 24, so no age is stated. The Gainesville Sun places the January 2021 shooting in the area rather than expressly on the lot, so the story does not claim it happened on the property.
Won by The Haggard Law Firm, P.A..
Bobby Hopkins Jr. was shot and killed at a Gainesville car wash in May 2021, four months after another man had been shot dead at or just outside the same lot. The owner, Kokomo Key Properties, Inc., had put no cameras, fence or gate on the property in between. An Alachua County jury found the company negligent in December 2023 and awarded $3,750,000 to each of Hopkins' two children plus $9,000 in funeral costs, $7,509,000 in all, while assigning Hopkins himself 25 percent of the fault. Florida's comparative negligence statute cuts the recovery by that share, leaving about $5.63 million, and the First District Court of Appeal affirmed per curiam on October 24, 2025.
What happened
Bobby Hopkins Jr. pulled into the Swamp Car Wash at 912 East University Avenue in Gainesville on May 22, 2021. He had been on the lot about 22 minutes, washing his car, when a dispute with an acquaintance ended in gunfire and he was shot in the chest. He called 911 himself at about 12:46 p.m. A friend drove him to UF Health Shands Hospital, where he died. He left two young children. Eugene Javon Patrick was convicted of second-degree murder in the shooting in May 2023.
Four months before Hopkins was killed, in January 2021, another man had been shot dead at or just outside the same car wash. Nothing about the property changed in between. There were no security cameras on the lot, no fence and no gate, and the owner, Kokomo Key Properties, Inc., hired nobody to watch the place.
The mother of Hopkins' two children sued Kokomo Key Properties in March 2022 in the Circuit Court for Alachua County (case No. 01-2022-CA-000762), suing on her own and as personal representative of his estate. The complaint argued the car wash sat in a high-crime area with a documented history of shootings, aggravated assaults, batteries, drug sales and robberies, that the company therefore owed its customers reasonable precautions against foreseeable criminal attacks, and that it took none. A security expert retained for the case concluded the property needed cameras, fencing and a gate. Kokomo Key Properties answered that Hopkins had been engaged in criminal activity known to be dangerous on the premises and had assumed the risk of it. Douglas J. McCarron, the partner at The Haggard Law Firm, P.A. who tried the case, told reporters there was no evidence Hopkins was doing anything but washing his car.
The trial ran three days. After roughly three hours of deliberation, the jury found the car wash negligent and, on Wednesday, December 6, 2023, awarded $3,750,000 to each of Hopkins' two children plus $9,000 for his funeral, $7,509,000 altogether. Jurors then assigned 75 percent of the fault to the car wash and 25 percent to Hopkins. McCarron said he did not know what drove the 25 percent, though surveillance video from across the street suggested Hopkins may have been the one who initiated contact with the man who shot him. Florida's comparative negligence statute cuts a recovery by the claimant's own share of the fault, which leaves about $5.63 million of the verdict.
By the time of the verdict the lot finally had what the case said it should have had all along. Security cameras, a fence and a gate were in place, the business had changed hands, and the sign out front read 912 Car Wash.
Kokomo Key Properties appealed to Florida's First District Court of Appeal (No. 1D2024-1060). James C. Blecke joined McCarron for the family, along with Bryan S. Gowdy and Nicholas P. McNamara of Creed & Gowdy, P.A.; three firms appeared for the car wash, among them Carlton Fields. The court heard argument on October 14, 2025 and affirmed per curiam ten days later, on October 24, 2025, leaving the judgment in place.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Florida First District Court of Appeal, Kokomo Key Properties, Inc. d/b/a Swamp Car Washes v. Lonetta Carter, as Personal Representative of the Estate of Bobby Hopkins, No. 1D2024-1060, October 24, 2025: per curiam affirmance of the Alachua County judgment (Judge George M. Wright), with the counsel block naming Douglas J. McCarron and James C. Blecke of The Haggard Law Firm, P.A., Coral Gables, and Bryan S. Gowdy and Nicholas P. McNamara of Creed & Gowdy, P.A. for the appellee, and Carlton Fields, Vasquez & Tosko, LLP and Latham, Luna, Eden & Beaudine, LLP for the appellant
- 2.CourtListener record of the same First DCA opinion, No. 1D2024-1060, filed October 24, 2025, per curiam, confirming the disposition and the trial judge
- 3.Florida First DCA oral argument calendar for Tuesday, October 14, 2025, case 1D2024-1060: lists Douglas J. McCarron and James C. Blecke of The Haggard Law Firm, PA for appellee Lonetta Carter, and the three defense firms for appellant
- 4.WCJB TV20, December 7, 2023: the $7.5 million award to Hopkins' children, the roughly three hours of deliberation, the finding that the car wash had no security measures, Douglas McCarron named as plaintiff's trial attorney, his statement that Hopkins was on the lot 22 minutes, the January shooting four months earlier, and the cameras, gate and fence now on the property under new ownership as 912 Car Wash
- 5.The Gainesville Sun (syndicated), updated December 7, 2023: the verdict returned late Wednesday, The Haggard Law Firm and partner Douglas McCarron as counsel for the family, the 12:46 p.m. 911 call and death at UF Health Shands, the high-crime-area and foreseeable-criminal-attack allegations, the defense assumption-of-risk answer, the 75/25 fault split, the $3.75 million per child and $9,000 funeral award, the security expert's camera, fence and gate recommendations and that they had since been added, the surveillance video suggesting Hopkins may have initiated contact, the fatal January 2021 shooting of Thomas Jamal Smith in the area, and the shooter's second-degree murder conviction
- 6.Mainstreet Daily News, December 8, 2023: independently confirms the Wednesday verdict, the $7.5 million total, the 75/25 fault split, the $3.75 million per child, the 2022 filing and the security-camera, fence and gate allegations
- 7.MoreLaw abstract, Lonetta Carter, et al. v. Kokomo Key Properties d/b/a Swamp Car Wash, Circuit Court, Alachua County, case No. 01-2022-CA-000762: corroborates the case number, the $3.75 million per child and $9,000 funeral award and the assumption-of-risk defense; its verdict date (December 8, 2023) and judge name conflict with the news reports and the appellate opinion and were not relied on
- 8.The Haggard Law Firm, P.A. (firm)
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