Tenants sought more than $1.5M
A local landlord isn’t responsible for four armed gunmen who stormed into a luxury apartment, tied up its tenants, beat and robbed them, and demanded $30,000 in cash, a jury here ruled Thursday.
After less than a day of deliberations, jurors ruled 9-3 against Oliver Starr, 36, and his former companion Julien Serrano, 32. The pair had sued landlord Marvin Engineering Co. Inc. for more than $1.5 million in lost wages, plus an unspecified amount for emotional stress caused by the August, 2001 incident.
“We felt badly for what may or may not have happened to them in that event,” said foreman Kevin Neustadt, 38, a West LA investment banker. “But we couldn’t quite connect the dots to get that back to Marvin Engineering.”
Proving more difficult, Neustadt said, was determining how much money Marvin Engineering was owed by the former couple, who broke their lease and moved to a house in Venice shortly after the incident. The landlord had asked for more than $40,000 for missed rent, late fees, and the cost of cleaning and hiring a broker.
In the end, jurors awarded the landlord $18,000, while also allowing the firm to keep a $9,000 security deposit that was never refunded to the former couple.
As the court clerk read the verdict, Starr closed his eyes and Serrano held her hands up to her mouth. Afterwards, Starr said, “We’re very surprised. We think if the jury had known everything, they would have found very differently.”
During the trial, Starr and Serrano contended that Marvin Engineering officials knew security at their luxury seaside building was inadequate, but failed to make necessary improvements. They argued the locks on both their elevator and on the emergency fire doors were broken, noting that several other break-ins occurred there in the prior months.
But officials from Marvin Engineering, an aerospace and defense manufacturer with a handful of properties on the westside, said they had no way of foreseeing the accident. Defense attorney Gilbert Garcia argued in the trial that the four armed gunmen were intent on getting in to the apartment by any means necessary.
Starr, who is considering an appeal, accused the defense attorney of hiding information about previous break-ins and faulted Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Valerie Baker for not allowing jurors to hear about a man who that summer was shot in front of the building, at Sunset Boulevard near Pacific Coast Highway.
The break-in occurred in broad daylight while Starr and Serrano were entertaining two guests for lunch on a Friday afternoon. Though they stole some jewelry and cash, the burglars were more concerned with the $30,000, which they thought Starr had. But the gunmen, who were never caught, apparently had the wrong apartment. They were looking for a reported drug dealer named “Matt” who had moved out of his apartment in the middle of the night a month earlier and hasn’t been located.
But it wasn’t just the defense that was successful in lobbying Judge Baker to keep information from the jurors. According to court documents, Serrano and her two guests were all born men. Each of the three now live as women.
“It’s completely irrelevant and potentially prejudicial,” said plaintiff attorney Blaine Greenberg. “Some folks are prejudiced against people different than they are.”
Greenberg, who has practiced law in California for 22 years, said this was only the second case he’s taken on contingency — and probably the last.
Jurors, who said they picked up on and felt uneasy concerning some of the issues relating to sexuality, said the bottom line was that the accident was not foreseeable. One such juror, a Santa Monica artist who declined to give his name, said, “Having lived and worked at the beach for 20 years, I know — the beach is a place people come to get unglued.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 23, 2004. Read the original PDF.