Our client was a passenger on a Miami-Dade County bus when a dispute broke out between him and the bus driver. A private security guard employed by a contracted security company intervened and, without justification, shot and killed our client. Our client was alone. The situation, while tense, did not warrant the use of deadly force. What happened that day was not just a tragedy -- it was a preventable one.Mausner Group was retained by our client's widow, who served as personal representative of his estate. We pursued the private security company and its insurer, establishing that the guard -- a former law enforcement officer -- used grossly excessive force in a situation that trained security professionals are expected to de-escalate without weapons. The absence of video footage made this case more challenging, but it did not make it unwinnable.We assembled a team of forensic, crime scene, ballistics, and use-of-force experts who reconstructed the events and established that the shooting was avoidable at every stage. After several years of litigation, the case settled for $1,700,000.
The critical legal distinction in this case was that the security guard was employed by a private company -- not a government agency. Claims against government entities in Florida carry strict notice requirements and damage caps under Florida's sovereign immunity framework. Because the security contractor was private, none of those limitations applied, and we were able to pursue full compensatory damages without a cap.Florida law recognizes claims for negligent hiring, retention, and supervision when an employer places an unfit employee in a position where they can harm others. We built the case around the guard's background, training deficiencies, and the security company's failure to ensure he was fit for duty. Our prosecution background drove our approach: we treated this like a criminal investigation -- working backward from the shooting, using forensic and ballistics evidence to dismantle any claim that the force was justified. Use-of-force experts testified to what a properly trained security professional would have done differently. The carrier ultimately settled rather than take that case to a jury.
