Attorneys with a Coral Gables law firm netted a nearly $5 million verdict for the surviving children of a woman who was shot outside of a Fort Pierce nightclub.

Michael Haggard and Christopher Marlowe with the Haggard Law Firm represented Teaira Nicole Reed in her legal action against the Pride of St. Lucie Lodge 1189 Inc. According to the lawsuit filed in St. Lucie Circuit Court, the defendant operated as a late-night hot spot called the Elks Lodge on weekends, while purporting to act as a benevolent association. Reed's August 2016 complaint accused the lodge of negligent security on its premises and being vicariously liable for the wrongful death of her mother Tanya Renee Oliver.

A St. Lucie jury delivered a $4.78 million verdict against the defendant on Aug. 23. The Haggard Law Firm partners said the award represents a long-awaited victory in the wake of the March 2015 incident that prompted their client's suit. Marlowe asserted the Elks Lodge acted as a benevolent organization "in name only."

"It was an absolute nightclub, which was fine, but it would never own the nature of its existence," the attorney said. According to Marlowe, the property utilized a nonprofit liquor license — generally reserved for groups such as volunteer organizations assembling holiday gatherings — in order to turn an easy profit in an area with few after-hours offerings.

"Somewhere along the way they decided they were going to throw parties in order to raise money," Marlowe said, adding the lodge has been able to skirt scrutiny for years due to its liquor license. "If you want the $5 Long Island Iced Tea with the heavy pour, you can get it. Competitively it screwed over a lot of people."

Read the verdict form:

|

'She tried to be a peacemaker'

Oliver, the plaintiff's mother, was out with friends at the Elks Lodge around 1:30 a.m. when her group wound up in a  physical altercation. Marlowe said the fight started because one of Oliver's friends, Shameka Newman, and another woman at the club had both had children with the same father.

Haggard maintained his client's mother "was literally a bystander" in the brawl, which involved seven combatants and many more people trying to break up the fight.

"[Oliver] was trying to break it up and never could get the parties to subside," the attorney said. "She tried to be a peacemaker, but that did not work."

Marlowe said Oliver walked out of the Elks Lodge's front door on her own accord while Newman and their friend Patricia Almore were tossed out by club security. The other group was separated and kicked out of the back. Once the groups re-encountered each other in the parking lot, the melee started up again.

Marlowe said different witnesses testified the fight outdoors lasted anywhere between 10 and 30 minutes.

"No one inside the Elks, including security, had any idea this fight was going on," he said, noting there were no security cameras monitoring the lodge's parking lot. Once the fight broke up, the parties departed for their respective cars. Marlowe said Oliver and her group were leaving when they were attacked again.

"The car with the other group of girls came onto the property, blocked them in, rolled down their windows and shots were fired," the attorney said. "Taeira was sitting in the right front passenger seat and got hit in the head."

Oliver was taken to Lawnwood Regional Medical Center in Fort Pierce for treatment and was eventually transferred to Jackson North Medical Center. After spending over a year in a semi-vegetative state, she died July 5, 2016.

Beyond the loss of their mother, Haggard said Oliver's death caused a ripple effect of calamities for Reed and her two younger sisters.

"One of [Oliver's daughters] was taken by her natural father and moved to Georgia," the attorney said, nothing she was a minor at the time of her mother's death. However, the Georgia-based parent "gave her up for adoption because he didn't want to be a father," forcing the child to live with a foster family.

Although the daughters all reunited in Fort Pierce once the youngest turned 18 and was emancipated from her adoptive family, Marlowe said "the family was broken apart" and left traumatized as a result.

As the oldest of the trio, Reed retained the attorneys to pursue litigation against the Elk's Lodge. Haggard said that had the defendant provided more stringent security on the night Oliver was shot, the fight that ultimately claimed her life may have been prevented.

"[Elks Lodge] should've made sure they left the property, the entire property, get in their cars and leave," Haggard said, noting the defendant also failed to inform local law enforcement of the incident. "They need to call 911 and make sure they get those people off the property."

Marlowe said because the Elks Lodge was "trying to walk this fine line of a charitable organization and a nightclub," calling 911 was a "terrifying" prospect for the business.

"They didn't need more eyes on the property," he said. "Everything that happened there was handled 'Roadhouse' style: 'Let's clean it up, get 'em out the back and keep on partying.' A legitimate place wouldn't have that same concern."

The answer and affirmative defenses filed by the defendant denied the charges and contended Oliver's death was caused by her own negligence, as well as the conduct of her accomplices on the night of the shooting.

"Newman and Almore are also liable for their failure to use reasonable care on the evening of the incident, and for creating a foreseeable zone of risk by their actions and inactions in fighting after they were told to leave the Pride of St. Lucie," the motion said. The lodge also maintained the shooting was neither foreseeable nor preventable.

The Elks Lodge was represented by attorneys from Hamilton Miller & Birthisel's Miami office as well as Pozo-Diaz & Pozo. No one from the defense's legal counsel returned the Daily Business Review's requests for comment by press time.

Marlowe said the Elks Lodge didn't do itself any favors with the jury "by trying to pretend it was something it wasn't."

"They tried against all evidence to portray themselves as a late-night venue for sophisticated patrons who listen to old-time favorites," he said, noting the club purported its DJs played jazz artists and the likes of singer Tony Bennett on Sundays. "The police authenticated pictures showing huge masses of people inside the club dancing and twerking. I think  the jury was upset the nature of the place was other than what was being represented. … They certainly saw through it. It was very transparent."

The $4.783 million award was divided among Reed and her sisters for past as well as future pain and suffering. The verdict incorporates $233,748.41 for Oliver's accrued medical expenses.

Marlowe said Reed and her siblings are happy with the outcome.

"It's been a long process for them," he said, adding more than four years have passed since the shooting which took Oliver's life. "To hear the defense counsel tell it, this was absolutely unforeseeable and unstoppable. This was not a complicated case at all, but … it certainly took a little while, but we got there."

Case: Teaira Nicole Reed, as Personal Representative of the Estate of Tanya Renee Oliver, deceased v. Pride of St. Lucie Lodge 1189 Inc. d/b/a "The Elks Lodge"

Case no.: 16-CA-001445

Description: Negligent Security/wrongful death

Filing date: Aug. 5, 2016

Verdict date: Aug. 23, 2019

Judge: Chief Judge Lawrence M. Mirman

Plaintiffs attorneys: Michael Haggard, Christopher Marlowe, James Blecke (appellant attorney), The Haggard Law Firm, Coral Gables

Defense attorneys: Jerry D. Hamilton and Schuyler A. Smith, Hamilton, Miller & Birthisel, Miami; Jamie A. Pozo and David Millheiser, Pozo-Diaz & Pozo, Miami

Verdict amount: $4,783,748.41

More Top Verdicts: