CVN screenshot of plaintiff attorney Timothy Scott delivering his closing argument
San Diego, CA - A California state court jury returned a $1.25 million verdict on Wednesday in favor of nine plaintiffs who suffered injuries when a mezzanine platform in a warehouse rental space collapsed during a children’s party, and the full trial was recorded gavel-to-gavel by Courtroom View Network.
While the jury found the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System which owns the warehouse responsible, they only assigned it 15 percent liability while allocating the remaining 85 percent to two settled-out tenants who leased space in the facility, reducing the collectible amount from the jury award to $187,500.
However attorney Timothy Scott of McKenzie Scott PC who represents the plaintiffs told CVN after the trial that settlements with the other tenants, San Diego Sports Entertainment and parkour gym operator Vault PK, yielded a total payout of over $4 million for parents and children injured in the 2017 accident.
The full trial was recorded gavel-to-gavel by Courtroom View Network. Sign up for a monthly or annual subscription to CVN’s trial video library and get unlimited on-demand access to this trial and hundreds more featuring many of the top plaintiff and defense civil trial attorneys practicing today.
The parents and children injured in the collapse accused MTS of failing to ensure the mezzanine platform in the warehouse was subject to adequate inspection or permitting. The warehouse was originally built to house railroad equipment, but MTS later began leasing it out to tenants to generate revenue.
The platform collapsed when party attendees quickly rushed upstairs for pizza. MTS blamed the collapse entirely on San Diego Sports Entertainment and Vault PK, arguing Vault PK had an illegal sublease agreement and that they were never notified of the plan to build a mezzanine platform in the facility.
“MTS and other public landlords cannot ignore code violations on their property that endanger the public,” Scott said after the trial. “We hope that this verdict, along with the previous settlements on behalf of our clients, help emphasize that message.”
Scott detailed hardball settlement tactics from the defense that resulted in resolutions for some people injured in the collapse, but that left nine others with no choice but to proceed to trial.
He explained MTS extended a $1.5 million settlement offer, known as a “998 offer” in California for the most badly injured plaintiff, and that two other plaintiffs accepted smaller offers of $70K.
However while finalizing details for those agreements, Scott said MTS abruptly changed course.
“MTS suddenly withdrew the 998 offers for everyone except Ms. Doyle— presumably to bully her into settling,” he explained. “That tactic worked, as she accepted the statutory offer for $1.5 million. With no 998’s or other pretrial offers remaining for any of the other plaintiffs, we went to trial.”
An attorney for MTS did not respond to requests for comment.
The trial marked the second time a San Diego jury weighed in on the platform collapse. A 2022 trial resulted in a liability finding against SDS and Vault PK, but the court dismissed MTS from the case mid-trial.
An appeals court reversed that decision and ordered a new trial after finding that landlords have the duty to protect the community from known dangerous conditions on public land regardless of the underlying terms of the lease.
The plaintiffs were also represented by attorney Nicolas Jimenez and paralegal Nicole Delaney of McKenzie Scott.
MTS was represented by Kimberly Oberrecht of Horton Oberrecht & Kirkpatrick.
The case is captioned Veronica Doyle, et al. v. San Diego Metropolitan Transit System, case number 37-2018-00016374-CU-PO-CTL in San Diego County Superior Court.
E-mail David Siegel at dsiegel@cvn.com
