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CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — A security firm that was patrolling the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in a rough Las Vegas neighborhood when a man was fatally attacked there in 2004 must pay $1 million to his family, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled.
In a decision dated Friday, the high court denied a motion for a new trial from security firm Wackenhut of Nevada, saying an inappropriate statement made by a lawyer during the proceedings in 2011 wasn't serious enough to throw out the whole trial.
The case centers around an attack on retired Air Force Maj. Michael Born the night of June 2, 2004. Born, 51, had been changing a headlight in the Wal-Mart parking lot when Raymond Alton Garrett, then 37, punched him in the head and emptied his pockets.
Born fell into a coma and died about two weeks later. Garrett, who Wackenhut attorneys described as a career criminal, was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole and is being held in High Desert State Prison.
Lawyers for Born's survivors argued in 2011 that Wackenhut and Wal-Mart should have been more vigilant in protecting customers at the store near the intersection of Nellis and Charleston boulevards. Police were called to the store an average of three times a day in the year before the attack, attorneys said.
A jury found Wackenhut liable for $1.03 million, but it ruled Wal-Mart was not negligent in the case.
Wackenhut appealed, arguing that the company was a small part of Wal-Mart's "state of the art" security measures, and it was hired to provide a single patrol vehicle to serve as a visual crime deterrent in the parking lot. The company said its vehicle passed close by Born five times while he was working on the car, and the attack happened just as the security officer drove out of the area.
Wackenhut also took issue with a statement that the attorney for Born's estate, Mont E. Tanner, made while cross-examining a witness during trial.
Tanner, according to court documents, said: "Judge . I think there may be some coaching the witness while I am asking him questions." A judge ordered the jury to ignore the comment.
Justices ruled Friday that while the statement was inappropriate because it disparaged the other lawyers in the case, it wasn't severe enough to warrant a mistrial.
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