Florida Jury Returns $779M Verdict for Family of Security Guard Killed at Gambling Cafe
A Gadsden County, Florida, jury awarded $779 million, believed to be a record for the county near Tallahassee, to the family of a security guard who was killed at what was called an illegal internet gambling café in 2023.
Ben Crump, the high-profile lawyer who has handled civil rights lawsuits around the country, represented the survivors of Lewis Butler, who was shot eight times while trying to protect a cashier at the café, according to the Tallahassee Democrat and court records.
Crump said the huge verdict should compensate the family and will help shut down more internet gambling cafes.
Florida lawmakers in 2013 outlawed the strip-mall casinos, which offer time on computers with slot machine-like and video poker gambling, along with cash payouts, according to news reports. But violations of the law are only misdemeanors and operations can easily set up shop in new locales.
Crump’s law firm and Tallahassee attorney Robert Scott Cox sued the Havana, Florida, café business known as Evan’s Groceries, owned by Fortune MGT 2023 and Manishkumar Patel, court records show. The suit argued that the café kept large amounts of cash on site, failed to report a previous robbery and negligently failed to warn of the dangers.
The jury awarded $550 million in damages for pain and suffering and another $225 million for loss of companionship. Punitive damages were not considered.
It’s unclear if the operation carried liability insurance or if the security guard and the injured clerk were covered by workers’ compensation insurance. Crump said at a news conference that the family may have to seek garnishments of bank accounts and liens on property held by the café owners, news sites reported.
The shooter, Kevontae Washington, was convicted of murder charges in November.
The verdict is the latest of several multimillion jury awards in the Southeast in recent years stemming from premises liability and shootings at stores. Lawmakers in Florida and Georgia in the last three years have limited lawsuit damages and have imposed other tort reform measures. Read more here.
The complaint in the Havana cafe shooting can be seen here. The jury verdict form is here.
Photo: Crump at a news conference in May. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, file)