3rd suit filed by survivors

A third lawsuit has been filed against the owners and managers of the Iconic Village apartment complex related to the fire that killed five people and left several others injured and about 200 displaced last month. 

Tony Buzbee of the Houston-based Buzbee Law Firm is representing Iconic Village residents Steven Mroski and Zachary Rosenfeld in a lawsuit filed in the 200th Judicial District in Travis County against San Marcos Green Investors, Elevate Multifamily and Deborah Jones. The plaintiffs are alleging negligence, gross negligence and premises liability and are asking for a settlement greater than $5 million. The plaintiffs have requested a jury trial.

Mroski and Rosenfeld were sleeping in their apartment, the plaintiff’s petition states, when the fire broke out. 

“Due to defective alarms, or the nonexistence or inadequacy of such, plaintiffs were not immediately alerted of the fire. … Plaintiffs finally awoke to the sound of screams, people running and glass breaking. The heat from the fire by this point had started to crack the windows inside of their individual apartment unit,” the petition states.

When Mroski and Rosenfeld got to the front of the building, they were met with a wall of flame and smoke and went into another apartment to escape out of a window. They dove out of a second-story apartment window and suffered “significant injuries to their feet, legs, backs, necks and other parts of their bodies,” the petition states.

“After jumping, plaintiffs lay there helplessly on the ground because neither of them could walk due to injury,” according to the petition. “Fortunately, other residents discovered plaintiffs and helped them reach a safe position.”

The damages Mroski and Rosenfeld are seeking include past and future medical expenses, loss of past and future earning capacity, past and future pain and suffering and mental anguish, past and future disfigurement and past and future physical impairments.

“This is a tragic case. Although their injuries are very serious, both Mr. Mroski and Mr. Rosenfeld are lucky to have only suffered the injuries that they did. Others were certainly not so lucky,” Buzbee said. “No doubt the building owners and management will say that, due to the structure’s age, they were not ‘required’ to install sprinklers or additional alarms, or to put other protective devices in place. We disagree. There are other laws in play other than city codes; specifically, we assert that the owner and management are required under precedent and general civil law to provide a safe place to live for residents, and to warn of known dangers. We assert in our lawsuit that they failed in that regard, miserably. We look forward to putting our case forward in the courts, rather than in the press.”

Phillip Miranda, whose son James Miranda died in the fire, was the first to file a lawsuit after the July 20 inferno. Other plaintiffs, all residents of the complex, then joined Miranda’s case: Benjamin Muñoz, Abril Cardenas, Christina Martinez, Pablo Torres, Michelle Trevino, Sean Kinder, Ashley Gutierrez and Beth Conboy have all signed on as plaintiffs in the Miranda case, which was filed July 30. The family of Zachary Sutterfield, who suffered head trauma and burns over 70 percent of his body during his escape from the fire, filed a suit on Aug. 16. 

rblackburn@sanmarcosrecord.com

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