Mississippi Court: Apartment Complex Can be Sued Over Resident’s Murder

The Mississippi Supreme Court says the family of a man killed in 2008 can sue his apartment complex’s owners for failing to warn him that his roommate might have violent tendencies.

The Commercial Dispatch reports that the high court overturned decisions by two lower courts in a lawsuit filed after Bobby Batiste’s 2009 murder conviction in Andreas Galanis’s death.

Oktibbeha County Circuit Court and the Mississippi Court of Appeals had ruled that Batiste’s language in a 2006 complaint against a previous roommate was not sufficient to prove violent tendencies.

In the complaint, he wrote, “I don’t want to get violent.”

The ruling says the apartment complex matched the two as potential roommates.

Galanis’ body was found the day after he notified authorities that money was missing from his account.