LAUDERHILL, Fla. – A property owner, manager, and security company recently settled a negligent security wrongful death lawsuit for $21 million nearly two years after a father’s murder in the parking lot of a rental community in Broward County.
According to the attorneys representing the grieving family, hours before Dimithry Remarais’s murder on Aug. 18, 2022, at Windward Vista, at 4591 NW 19 St., where he lived in Lauderhill, he mailed two stuffed animals to Kentucky.
It was his last gift to his daughters.
Remarais’s sister Isabella Lubin described him as “a loving father” and a funny uncle who was “hardworking” and “determined.” She said his landlord could have prevented the tragedy with better security.
”He came face to face with the criminals in the process of stealing his car, which led him to get shot and killed,” Lubin said.
Attorneys Mike Haggard and Adam Finkel stood by Lubin during a news conference on Wednesday near the crime scene.
The Haggard Law Firm, representing the family, documented other times when Windward Vista tenants had also been victims of crimes — while the property owner and property manager entrusted their safety to Excel Security.
“It was far too easy to meet someone who said, ‘Oh! I had a crime happen to me’ or ‘I had my car broken into’ or ‘I know someone who was robbed’ or burglarized,” Finkel said.
Haggard said the family wants landlords to weigh the risks of not providing security and said, “If we can just reach one property manager, if just one property owner sees this news coverage, and adds security and learns a lesson from it, it’s all worth it.”
Finkel and Haggard said the $21 million settlement was after serving a pre-suit demand for Excel Security’s $6 million policy limits and settling with the property owners and managers for $15 million.
The law firm announced the settlement on July 1 and described their strategy: During a deposition, a former property manager said Excel Security should have been fired and wasn’t, so the testimony then “pit the defendants against one another.”