Shaun O'Hara (from left), Miranda Brash and Charlie Gower of Charles A. Gower P.C. (Courtesy photo)

A Columbus jury awarded $125 million to the daughter and executrix of a man who died in what was described as an unbearably hot apartment in a building for low-income and disabled residents, many of whom testified of squalid conditions, nonfunctional heating and air conditioning and management that evicted anyone who complained. 

The verdict award included $50 million in punitive damages against the owners and management of The Ralston, a 269-unit building in what was once one of Columbus' toniest hotels. It sits across a downtown street from the iconic First Baptist Church.

The award also included $25 million in fees for the plaintiffs' legal team: Charlie Gower, Miranda Brash and Shaun O'Hara of Columbus' Charles A. Gower P.C.   

“They were complaining that the air-conditioning wasn't working,” said Gower. “A fellow got so frustrated he took a petition to the mayor trying to do something about it, and they tried to kick him out.” 

The plaintiff's filings asserted that the temperature in Charles Hart's unit was 98 when the 62-year-old disabled steel worker suffocated on July 6, 2017. 

Gower said the defendants offered $50,000 to settle the case last year, raising the ante to $1.5 million two weeks before trial and $5 million as the jury deliberated.

The defense rejected an offer to settle for $10 million earlier this year, he said.   

The Ralston, its owners and managers are represented by James Budd and Jessica Hubbert of Atlanta's Mabry & McClelland, who did not respond to requests for comment. 

According to Gower, Hart moved into The Ralston in 2012, disabled by back injuries and suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, among other ailments. 

He was among several Ralston residents who had signed a petition demanding that the air conditioning be repaired, two months before he was found dead. 

The complaint Hart's daughter, Christina Thornton, filed in Muscogee County State Court later that year said that, on the day of his death, the coroner reported that Hart's body was hot to the touch.  

Three weeks before Hart's death another resident suffered a heat stroke when his room temperature reached 96, it said. 

The complaint included claims for negligence and violations of the Georgia Fair Business Practices Act. Gower said Chief Judge Andy Prather subsequently threw out the latter count. 

The suit named The Ralston and its corporate LLC in New Jersey; management company PF Holdings; and a New York nonprofit, Schoolhouse Road Estates Inc., as defendants.

According to Gower and the complaint, in 2014 Columbus issued $10.5 million in revenue bonds to the nonprofit so it could buy The Ralston.

“”They paid a little more than $7 million for it, and they had a 30-year contract with HUD to provide Section 8 housing,” Gower said. “Over a period of four years, they diverted more than $5 million in bond money and rent to the nonprofit in New York, which gave money to a school and church headquartered in the same office they were.”

“They operated on a shoestring, and the situation was horrible,” he said. “There was no furniture in the lobby; they boarded up one of the elevators, and the other two don't work.”

The defense portion of the pretrial order said Hart was in very poor health and suffered from multiple health issues, and that “his death was not caused by excessive heat in his apartment.”

The air conditioning was functioning on the day he died, it said. 

“Mr. Hart turned off his air conditioning because he was cold because of his poor health,” it said. The defense said he died of natural causes.

Gower said that at a mediation before David Tisinger of Carrollton's Tisinger Vance a few months after the suit was filed, the defense would go no higher than $50,000.

During a six-day trial, key plaintiffs witnesses included Ralston tenants and Deputy Coroner Freeman Worley, who testified that he had never touched a body so hot and that the air conditioner was not working.

“He said that, after allowing it to run for an hour, the temperature never got below 98 degrees,” said a trial account Gower provided. “The coroner testified that the only place cool in the building was the manager's office.”

The defense medical expert, Atlanta pulmonologist Thomas DeMarini, testified that Hart did not die from the heat but may have succumbed to a drug overdose from his pain medication, an undiagnosed cancer, choking due to pneumonia or other natural causes, it said. 

On July 1, the jury first awarded $35 million for Hart's life and $15 million for his pain and suffering; $25 million in fees and $50 million in punitive damages.

The verdict included a separate finding that the defendants acted “with specific intent to cause harm,” a  necessary finding for punitive damages in excess of Georgia's statutory cap of $250,000. 

Gower said he did not speak to jurors afterward, but that the foreman told a Columbus TV station that “they were mad because [the defendants] had sent all the money to New York instead of fixing up The Ralston.”