Premises Liability – Residential Fire

Our premises liability team represented the mother and father of a 23-year-old college student who needlessly and tragically died when the rented apartment in which he slept, owned by a Bay Area landlord, burned because the landlord negligently left a sofa over a floor furnace and failed to equip the home with functioning smoke detectors. Our attorneys proved that the landlord, who owned more than 60 properties, had failed to make required and proper inspections and to make certain that smoke detectors were working. After the fire, our attorneys, through investigators, demonstrated that not a single operational smoke detector was present on the second floor of the dwelling where our clients’ son perished. The settlement, in the amount of $1.5 million, was paid by the insurance company for the property owner.