$1.76M against a shopping center's owner and manager after a 4-year-old drowned in its retention pond

An Alachua County jury returned a $3.75 million verdict in the 2023 death of a 4-year-old boy who drowned in a retention pond behind a shopping center in Gainesville. After the jury’s fault split, the share against the shopping center’s owner and property manager comes to about $1.76 million.

The boy lived with his mother in the back of a pet grooming business inside the shopping center, where she worked. His parents sued the center’s owner and its property manager. They argued the companies let the pond’s bank erode until the slope was dangerously steep and never fenced it, and that the defendants had two choices, fix the pond or fence it, and did neither. The defense argued the parents knew the boy tended to run and left him unsupervised, that the grooming store was never meant to be a residence, and that the pond was open and obvious.

The jury found the boy was an invitee. It awarded $2.5 million to his mother and $1.25 million to his father, then assigned 37 percent of the fault to the property manager, 10 percent to the owner, 38 percent to the mother and 15 percent to the father. The parents had asked for up to $200 million, and the highest offer before trial was $1 million, Courtroom View Network reported.

The $1.76 million figure is 47 percent of the verdict, the estimate Courtroom View Network gave; we have not seen the final judgment. We have not found a report of post-trial motions or an appeal.