The Night Makayla DeSantis Was Killed
You are not here because you read a news story. You are here because someone you love is dead, and the people who should have protected her did not. That is the only thing that matters in this room.
On the evening of Sunday, March 8, 2026, a 911 call reached the Franklin County Regional Communications Center at about 7:30 p.m. The caller reported that Makayla Rose DeSantis had been shot at a residence on Left Bank in Carrabassett Valley — inside a condominium unit at the housing complex that Sugarloaf Mountain Ski Resort rents out to its seasonal and year-round workforce. She was twenty-three years old. She had been in a relationship with the man now charged with her murder for about seven years, since they were teenagers. Both worked at the resort. The man, twenty-four, was arrested the next Monday evening on a warrant issued by the Farmington District Court and is being held without bail at the Franklin County Jail.
Makayla was still alive when first responders reached her. They took her to MaineHealth Franklin Hospital in Farmington, and from there she was airlifted to Maine Medical Center in Portland. She died from her injuries there. Her brother, Max DeSantis, started a GoFundMe within hours to bury his older sister. By Tuesday night more than ten thousand dollars had come in from people who never met her, because a community already understood what her family is only beginning to feel: that a young woman who worked at a ski resort, who lived in housing the resort put her in, who was dating another resort employee for nearly a decade, was not killed by a stranger. She was killed in the system that employed her, housed her, and watched her relationship for years.
If you are reading this because that loss is yours, you are in the worst place of your life. We are sorry. We are also the people you call next. The decisions made in the next seventy-two hours will decide whether the people who let Makayla die face anything for it, or whether they walk away because her family grieved too quietly to ask.
This page is a complete legal analysis of what Maine law allows her family to do, who can be held responsible, what the case is worth, and what evidence is dying right now. Read it once, then call us. We are Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña, and we have been preparing for cases exactly like this for more than two decades. The call is free. We don’t get paid unless we win.
The Housing Question: Why Sugarloaf Created This Danger
Most people will read this story and think the case is about a man who shot his girlfriend. It is. It is also about a ski resort that housed the two of them together, knew the relationship, knew the location, and chose to keep them there. Maine wrongful death law reaches both.
Sugarloaf Mountain is one of the largest ski areas in the eastern United States. It sits in Carrabassett Valley, a remote Franklin County town where the resort is the economic engine and employer. The Left Bank area is the high-density employee housing the resort uses because there is nowhere else for a seasonal worker to live within driving distance. The condominium units are rented to Sugarloaf employees as a condition and benefit of employment. When a person works at Sugarloaf, they are not choosing to live at Left Bank for the view. They live there because the resort needs them close to the mountain and the only available housing is the resort’s own. That fact does not disappear from the case when the relationship goes bad. It is the case.
Sugarloaf’s parent company is Boyne Resorts, one of the largest family-owned resort operators in North America. The legal entity that owns the property and the entity that employs the workers are not always the same shell. The operating company is the one named in the personnel file. The real-estate company owns the building. The management company runs the day-to-day of the housing complex. They can all be defendants, because the family is allowed to plead multiple defendants who are responsible for the same harm, and let the court sort out who pays what share.
The legal theory that brings the resort into the case is not exotic. It is the same theory that has held apartment complexes, hotels, and dormitories responsible for foreseeable violence on their premises for decades. Sugarloaf had a duty to provide reasonably safe housing to its employees. The resort controlled who got keys, who got access, who lived next to whom. The resort either knew or had reason to know that violence was foreseeable in the relationship it had housed for years, or it did not, and that failure of knowledge is itself a form of negligence. Either way, the duty existed, and the family can ask a jury to find it was breached.
We are not here to argue that a ski resort is the insurer of every relationship between its employees. We are here to argue that when a resort puts two people in employer-controlled housing for years, and one of them kills the other, the resort owes the victim’s family an answer for what it knew, when it knew it, and what it did about it.
Maine’s Wrongful Death Law — 18-C M.R.S. § 2-807
Maine’s wrongful death statute, 18-C M.R.S. § 2-807, caps non-economic damages (the loss of society, the loss of companionship) at $750,000 and punitive damages at $250,000 — but leaves economic damages uncapped.
That single sentence, supplied by the Maine Uniform Probate Code, decides more about this case than any other statute. It sets the ceiling for the grief and the loss of her presence, and it removes the ceiling for the money her family will actually need. Anyone who tells you Maine’s wrongful death law is unfriendly has not read the second half of the rule.
Maine follows a modified comparative negligence rule with a fifty-percent bar. That matters in two ways. First, a defendant can try to blame Makayla for the shooting — to argue that she “stayed” or “provoked” or “failed to leave.” Maine law tells the jury to look at the percentage of fault each party bears. If the defense tries to pin more than half the fault on her, the family recovers nothing. If the defense can only pin less than half, the family’s recovery is reduced by that share but not eliminated. The bar is set high for the defense, and that is a deliberate choice Maine made to protect people in exactly Makayla’s position. Second, the rule is the same in every Maine wrongful death case, so the family can plan with confidence about how the math works.
The statute of limitations in Maine for a wrongful death action is two years from the date of death. That sounds like a long time, but in practice the two years fills up with investigation, with the criminal case, with the family’s grief, with the slow realization of what has been lost. Two years is a deadline, not a cushion. If a family waits to act until the criminal case is over, they may be at month eighteen before they realize they have anything to do. We start wrongful death work in the first week, not the second year.
The 18-C M.R.S. § 2-807 caps and the two-year deadline are the two facts the family needs to memorize. Everything else in this analysis — every theory, every defendant, every dollar — runs through those two rules.
The Workers’ Compensation Fork: How the Resort Tries to Dodge the Civil Case
The first move the resort’s defense lawyer will make is to point at Maine’s Workers’ Compensation Act, Title 39-A, and say that the family’s only remedy against the resort is workers’ comp. The resort will argue that Makayla was its employee, that she was on the resort’s premises (the resort’s housing), that she was killed by another resort employee, and that the workers’ comp system was designed for exactly this situation. The defense will say the family gets a workers’ comp check and that’s the end.
The defense is half right. Maine’s workers’ comp statute is the exclusive remedy against a direct employer for an injury that arises out of and in the course of employment. The resort is a direct employer of both Makayla and the man charged with her murder. The exclusivity provision is real. But the exclusivity provision is not absolute, and Maine courts have carved out situations where the family can pursue a civil case against the employer anyway. The carve-outs that matter here are two.
First, when the injury arises from an intentional tort. Maine courts have allowed civil claims against employers when the employer engaged in conduct that crossed the line from negligence into intention. The exclusive remedy is not a license to harm your own employee on purpose. If the resort had advance warning that the man was dangerous and chose to do nothing, the exclusivity defense weakens. The standard Maine courts apply is whether the employer had actual knowledge that injury was substantially certain to occur. That is a high bar, but it is not an impossible one, and the family is entitled to put on the evidence and let a jury decide.
Second, the workers’ comp bar is strongest against the direct employer, not against third parties. The housing complex, the property management company, the security company, the parent company Boyne Resorts, and any non-employee defendant can be sued in a normal civil case. Workers’ comp exclusivity is a shield the employer can raise, not a force field that protects everyone connected to the resort. A thoughtful complaint names every defendant who is not the direct employer, pleads the direct-employer defendants separately to preserve the exclusive-remedy question, and forces the defense to litigate the carve-out if the resort wants the case thrown out.
This is not a procedural detail. It is the difference between a case that goes to a jury and a case that ends in a comp hearing. Our job in the first thirty days is to identify every possible defendant, every theory that survives the exclusivity defense, and every source of recovery that workers’ comp cannot block. The structure of the complaint is where the war is won or lost.
The General Duty Clause: When Workplace Violence Becomes an OSHA Matter
Maine’s workers’ comp law is not the only regulatory regime that applies. Federal OSHA law applies to Sugarloaf, and so does Maine’s state-plan version of OSHA. The relevant rule is the General Duty Clause, which requires every employer to furnish a workplace free from recognized hazards that are likely to cause death or serious physical harm. Workplace violence is a recognized hazard in every modern OSHA publication on the subject. The fact that Makayla was killed in employer-provided housing does not move her outside the rule, because the housing was a condition of her employment and a benefit provided by the employer. Courts have repeatedly held that employer-provided housing is part of the workplace for OSHA purposes when the employer controls the premises.
OSHA does not create a private cause of action. The family cannot sue Sugarloaf in federal court under the General Duty Clause. But the OSHA investigation creates a paper trail that is the spine of the civil case. When OSHA investigates, it interviews employees, reviews incident logs, requests the resort’s own workplace violence prevention program, and writes a citation report that becomes a public record. The resort’s response to OSHA, the documents it produces, the policies it claims to have — all of that becomes discoverable in the civil case. The OSHA file is where we look for the proof that the resort knew or should have known.
Sugarloaf is required under OSHA recordkeeping rules to maintain a log of serious workplace injuries for five years. A prior incident of domestic violence at the Left Bank complex, a prior 911 call, a prior HR complaint, a prior restraining order, a prior employee assistance referral — any of those would be the kind of notice that transforms the case from “we couldn’t have known” to “we knew and did nothing.” The OSHA 300 log, the resort’s own HR files, and the resort’s workplace violence prevention program (if it has one) are the documents the preservation letter targets.
The Negligent Security Theory: Foreseeability at Employee Housing
A negligent security case is built on a question with three parts. Did the defendant owe a duty of reasonable care to the victim? Did the defendant breach that duty by failing to take reasonable precautions? Did the breach cause the injury, and was the injury foreseeable? In Maine, the analysis tracks the Restatement (Second) of Torts approach, with the foreseeability question treated as central.
The duty in this case is the easiest of the three. Sugarloaf, as the operator of employer-controlled housing, owed Makayla a duty of reasonable care to protect her from foreseeable criminal acts of third parties on the premises. Maine courts have applied this duty to landlords, hotels, and other premises where the defendant has a measure of control. The resort has more than a measure of control over Left Bank; the resort selects the tenants, distributes the keys, sets the rules, and runs the property. The duty is clear.
Foreseeability is where the case is won or lost. Foreseeability does not mean the resort had to predict this specific shooting. Foreseeability means that the type of harm was within the general field of risk that a reasonable housing operator would have guarded against. The arguments we will make at trial are anchored in the facts. Was there a prior 911 call from a Left Bank unit? Was there a prior incident report filed with the resort’s HR department? Was there a prior restraining order that the resort should have known about? Had the resort trained its housing staff to recognize the warning signs of escalating domestic violence? Did the resort have any policy at all for separating hostile couples, for transferring employees who reported abuse, for responding to 911 calls at the housing complex? Each of those questions is a piece of the foreseeability puzzle, and each is supported by records the resort is required to keep or by training the resort should have provided.
The breach question follows from the answers. If the resort had no workplace violence prevention program for the housing complex, the breach is the absence of a program. If the resort had a program but did not follow it, the breach is the failure to follow it. If the resort had a program and followed it but the program was not reasonably designed, the breach is the design defect. Each of these is a different argument that requires different evidence, and we will pursue all three until the defense identifies the one that bothers them most.
The Evidence Clock: Records That Expire by the Hour
In a case like this, evidence is perishable. The resort’s lawyers and insurance carriers know exactly which records they want preserved and which they want to vanish. We know the same list, and we move first.
The Left Bank condominium complex has surveillance cameras. We do not yet know whether they were operational on the night of the shooting, whether they recorded the building entrances, the hallways, or the parking area, or how long the system retains footage before overwriting. Many residential-style systems overwrite on a rolling thirty-day loop. Some hold less. A preservation letter to the property management company, sent within seventy-two hours of the incident, is the single most important document the family can authorize. Once the letter is on file, any subsequent destruction of footage is spoliation, and a Maine court has authority to instruct the jury that the missing footage would have been unfavorable to the spoliator.
The resort’s HR records for both employees are the next priority. Personnel files, performance reviews, disciplinary records, employee assistance program referrals, prior complaint histories, and any prior incident reports involving either of them are all discoverable. These records are governed by the resort’s own retention policy, not by any statutory minimum, and they can be quietly purged if no one demands them in writing. The preservation letter names the specific categories of HR records the family is asserting an interest in, and it is sent certified mail the same week.
The 911 audio and the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office call history for the Left Bank address are public records that can be requested under the Maine Freedom of Access Act. The audio of the original 911 call is the single most powerful piece of evidence in the case. The call history shows whether the resort’s housing had prior 911 calls, and if so how many, and over what period. The audio and the CAD records are typically held for years, but they should be requested immediately because administrative review of the request can take weeks.
The man charged with the murder has a phone. His phone contains text messages, search history, social media, and location data that may be relevant to the case. His employer — the same resort — may have issued him a work phone with the resort’s mobile-device management system, which means the resort controls that data. The family’s lawyer can demand preservation of both personal and work-device data, and a forensic image of the personal device can be obtained through a search warrant in the criminal case. The civil case can then seek discovery of any data the criminal case collected.
Sugarloaf’s OSHA 300 log, written workplace violence prevention program, incident reports, security logs at Left Bank, records of any prior domestic violence complaints, training records for housing staff, and the resort’s general policies on employee safety all sit in the resort’s possession. Some are subject to OSHA’s five-year retention rule. Some are governed only by the resort’s internal policy. All of them need a preservation demand within the first week.
The resort’s insurance carrier has a file on Sugarloaf. That file contains prior claims, prior incident reports, and the carrier’s own internal risk assessment. Insurance carrier claim files are typically discoverable once a civil case is filed, but the file that exists today, before any lawsuit, is the file that will be hardest to recreate later. The family does not need the insurance file on day one, but the family needs the existence of the insurance file preserved, and that means a separate preservation letter to the carrier identifying the policy and the relevant time period.
The pattern is clear. The evidence the family needs is held by people who have an interest in its disappearance. Maine law gives the family tools — preservation letters, spoliation instructions, motions to compel — but those tools work only if they are deployed before the evidence is gone. The single most valuable thing the family can do in the first week is call us, and the first thing we do on that call is send the letters.
The Insurance-Adjuster Playbook (and Our Counter)
The moment the family files a claim, the resort’s insurance carrier will assign an adjuster. That adjuster will have a playbook. We have seen it for decades. The first three plays are the ones to watch for in the first thirty days.
Play one: the recorded statement. The adjuster will call, sound friendly, and ask Makayla’s family to “just tell us what happened.” The call will be recorded. Anything the family says about prior incidents, about the relationship, about what Makayla did or did not do, will be transcribed and used against the family in deposition six months later. The counter is simple. Do not give a recorded statement. Refer the adjuster to us. We will handle the statement, with a stenographic reporter of our choosing, after the family has had time to understand the legal landscape. A recorded statement given to the carrier without counsel is the single most common way families lose leverage in the first month.
Play two: the quick check with a release. The carrier will offer a small settlement, often in the range of two thousand to ten thousand dollars, framed as help with funeral expenses. The check will arrive with a release printed on the back, in fine print, that purports to release all claims against the resort forever. The counter is the same as it is in every insurance negotiation in every case. Do not cash the check. Do not sign the release. The funeral expenses are a real need, and we can help the family access victim-compensation funds, charitable assistance, and short-term loans to cover them without trading away a seven-figure wrongful death case for a few thousand dollars. A small check that carries a release is not generosity; it is a trap.
Play three: the comparative fault interview. The adjuster will suggest a “fact-finding” meeting, sometimes with a private investigator present, to discuss the relationship. The meeting is not fact-finding. The meeting is evidence-gathering. The investigator will ask the family about prior incidents, about whether Makayla ever complained, about whether the family knew about the relationship’s difficulties, about any prior calls to law enforcement. Every answer the family gives will be used to construct a narrative of comparative fault. Maine’s fifty-percent bar means the family needs to keep Makayla’s share of fault below half, and a single unguarded interview can move that number. The counter is the same as it is for the recorded statement. Do not attend the meeting. Refer the carrier to us. We will participate in written discovery in the formal case, where there are rules, and we will not participate in informal “fact-finding” that exists only to give the carrier free discovery.
The Damage Categories Under Maine’s Statute
Maine’s wrongful death statute divides recoverable damages into two distinct categories, and the family needs to understand both before any settlement number makes sense.
The first category is economic damages. These are the objectively calculable money losses, and they are uncapped in Maine. Funeral and burial expenses, medical bills from MaineHealth Franklin Hospital and Maine Medical Center, the ambulance and air-medical transport cost, and any other out-of-pocket expense related to the injury and death go into the economic stream. Lost wages from the date of injury to the date of death are economic. The loss of Makayla’s future earning capacity is economic. She was twenty-three. The Bureau of Labor Statistics Markov-process worklife tables supply the number of additional working years she would statistically have had. Her actual earnings before the shooting, projected forward with realistic growth and discounted to present value, are economic. The loss of her employer-paid benefits — health insurance, retirement contributions, paid leave — are economic. The replacement cost of the household services she would have provided are economic. Maine law lets the family recover the full economic loss, with no statutory cap, and that number is the foundation of the case.
The second category is non-economic damages. These are the human losses the law cannot measure with a formula — the grief, the mental anguish, the loss of her society, the loss of her companionship, the loss of her guidance. Maine caps these at $750,000 in a wrongful death action. That is a real ceiling, and the family should know it exists. But the cap is on the intangible losses, not the economic ones, and a twenty-three-year-old woman killed before she had children, before she had a career, before she had the life that was taken from her, has a meaningful non-economic claim that the cap does not erase.
Punitive damages are a third category, capped at $250,000 in Maine, available only on clear and convincing evidence that the defendant’s conduct showed a reckless indifference to the rights of others. A ski resort that housed an employee in employer-controlled housing for years, knowing that the relationship was dangerous, may fit that standard. The standard is high, but the punitive cap is real and reachable.
A family that focuses on the $750,000 cap and forgets the uncapped economic damages is leaving the largest part of the case on the table. A forensic economist working with a life-care planner can build the economic stream in detail. The economic number is where the verdict and the settlement will land.
Who May Recover Under Maine’s Beneficiary Structure
Maine’s wrongful death statute is not a free-for-all. The beneficiaries are defined by class, and the order matters. The first class is the surviving spouse, the children, and the parents of the deceased. If Makayla had children, they are first-class beneficiaries. If she had a spouse, the spouse is first-class. If she had no spouse and no children, the parents are first-class. If there is no first-class beneficiary, the siblings and more distant heirs may recover. If there is no eligible family member, the estate recovers on behalf of itself.
Makayla was twenty-three. The article does not say whether she had a spouse or children, and the family will know better than any public source. The point for the family to understand is that the structure matters for both who can file the case and for what damages each beneficiary can claim. A child who has lost a mother has a different loss of companionship claim than a parent who has lost an adult child. A sibling has a derivative claim, not a direct one. The complaint has to be structured to put the right beneficiaries in the right place, and that work begins with the family telling us about itself.
A personal representative of the estate has to be appointed to bring the case. In a death of a young adult without a will, Maine’s intestate succession statute determines who has priority to serve. The personal representative is the person the court authorizes to bring the wrongful death action on behalf of the beneficiaries. We handle the appointment if the family wants us to. It is paperwork, but it is paperwork that gates the entire case.
Case Value: What This Case Is Worth
The honest answer to the value question is that we do not know the number yet, because we do not yet know the economic stream, the comparative fault analysis, the insurance tower, or the willingness of the defense to settle. What we can say is the shape of the case.
The economic damages will be built from the medical bills (Franklin Hospital and Maine Medical Center), the funeral and burial expenses, the air-medical transport, and the projected loss of future earnings. A twenty-three-year-old woman with a working life ahead of her, working at a ski resort in Maine, had a statistical worklife expectancy of several decades. Even at modest wages, the projected loss over a forty-year working horizon is substantial. The fringe-benefit loss adds roughly a third, per federal Bureau of Labor Statistics data, because the health insurance, the retirement plan, and the paid leave are part of the compensation that dies with the worker. The household services she would have provided — which for a twenty-three-year-old may include the full range of a working adult’s contribution to a household — are also economic, valued by replacement cost.
The non-economic damages are capped at $750,000. For a young woman killed by her partner in employer-provided housing, the loss of society and companionship claim is real, and the cap does not erase it.
The punitive damages are capped at $250,000, available only on a clear-and-convincing showing of reckless indifference. Whether that cap comes into play depends on what the investigation finds about what the resort knew.
Put together, the realistic case value in front of a Maine jury sits in a range that we have seen in similar cases across the country, in the high six figures to mid seven figures, driven primarily by the uncapped economic damages. We will not quote a specific number to a family in a first meeting. We will build the model with a forensic economist and a life-care planner, and we will give the family a number built on the actual records, not a guess.
The other side will offer less. The first offer from the carrier will probably be in the range of two to three times the cap on non-economic damages, with no real recognition of the economic loss. The first offer is the carrier telling the family what they think the family does not know. The family’s lawyer exists to make sure the carrier learns the difference.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. We say that clearly, and we mean it. The number in your case will depend on the evidence we develop, the medical records we obtain, the financial records we recover, and the defense’s willingness to accept responsibility. Our job is to make that number as high as the evidence supports.
What We Do — and Why the Clock Is Already Running
When the family calls us, the first conversation is free and confidential. We listen. We answer questions. We explain the landscape. We do not pressure the family to hire us on that call. The family takes the time it needs to decide, and we take the time we need to understand the case.
If the family decides to move forward, the first thing we do is send the preservation letters. The resort. The property management company. The insurance carrier. The police department and the sheriff’s office. Every recipient gets a written demand, sent the same day, identifying the records we want preserved, identifying the evidence we want frozen, and identifying the legal duty the recipient has to comply. We do not need a filed lawsuit to send a preservation letter. The duty to preserve attaches the moment a claim is reasonably foreseeable, and a wrongful death claim is foreseeable the moment a 23-year-old employee is shot and killed in employer-provided housing.
The second thing we do is open the OSHA file. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has jurisdiction over Sugarloaf, and the General Duty Clause applies. We file the complaint, we request the workplace violence prevention program, we request the OSHA 300 log for the past five years, and we request the citation history. The OSHA file becomes a discovery roadmap for the civil case. Whatever OSHA finds becomes available to us.
The third thing we do is coordinate with the criminal prosecutor. The man charged with Makayla’s murder will be prosecuted in Franklin County. The civil case runs in parallel, not in sequence. We do not have to wait for the criminal case to finish to move the civil case forward. The two cases can share evidence, and we can use the criminal discovery as a head start in the civil case. The victim’s family has rights in the criminal case too, and we coordinate with the prosecutor to make sure the family’s voice is heard without compromising the civil strategy.
The fourth thing we do is hire the experts. A forensic economist to project the economic loss. A life-care planner to map the medical and care costs. A premises-security expert to evaluate the resort’s housing program. A domestic violence expert to testify about the pattern of escalation and the role of housing in victim safety. Each expert is engaged only when the case needs the expert, and each expert is chosen for the quality of the work, not the price.
The fifth thing we do is file the case. Maine’s two-year statute of limitations starts running from the date of death, and the family does not have the luxury of waiting. The complaint names every defendant we can identify, pleads every theory we can support, and demands every remedy Maine law allows. The case moves from filing to discovery to mediation to trial, with the family’s input at every step.
We do not get paid unless we win. The fee is one-third of the recovery before trial and forty percent if the case goes to verdict. The family pays nothing out of pocket. The costs of the case — the experts, the records, the filing fees — are advanced by the firm and reimbursed out of the recovery at the end. If the family cannot afford the case, the case still gets made. That is the promise of contingency representation, and it is the only way a family without resources can match a ski resort and its insurance carrier in court.
About Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña
Ralph P. Manginello is the managing partner of Attorney911, also styled The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. He has been licensed to practice law in Texas since November 6, 1998 — more than twenty-seven years at the time of writing — and he is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He built his practice in Houston, where the firm maintains offices serving Harris, Montgomery, Fort Bend, Brazoria, and Galveston Counties, with additional offices in Austin and the Golden Triangle. Before he was a lawyer he was a journalist, and the discipline of the craft shows in his work. He earned his B.A. in Journalism and Public Relations from the University of Texas at Austin and his J.D. from South Texas College of Law Houston. He speaks Spanish. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas, the Houston Bar Association, the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Pro Bono College of the State Bar of Texas, the Million Dollar Trial Lawyers Achievement Association, and the National Association of Italian Lawyers. He carries the same energy in a wrongful death case he carried as a reporter chasing the truth.
Lupe Peña is an associate attorney at the firm. He is a Texan, third-generation, with family roots to the King Ranch. He was born, raised, and lives in Sugar Land. He earned his B.B.A. in International Business from Saint Mary’s University in San Antonio in 2005 and his J.D. from South Texas College of Law Houston in May 2012. He was admitted to the Texas Bar on December 6, 2012, and to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He spent the early part of his career as an insurance-defense attorney at a national defense firm, where he learned from the inside how adjusters value claims, how claim-management software discounts pain it cannot see, and how defense counsel builds the case to deny the family. He now uses that knowledge for the family. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. For a Maine family that includes Spanish speakers, that is the difference between a lawyer who reads a script in a second language and a lawyer who thinks in it.
The firm is Attorney911, also styled Attorney 911. The tagline is “Legal Emergency Lawyers.” The website is attorney911.com. The emergency hotline is 1-888-ATTY-911. The call is free. We are open 24/7 because the evidence is not.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who can file a wrongful death lawsuit in Maine for a death like Makayla’s?
The personal representative of Makayla’s estate files the case, on behalf of the beneficiaries defined by Maine’s wrongful death statute. The first class is the surviving spouse, children, and parents. Siblings and more distant heirs may recover if there is no first-class beneficiary. We handle the appointment of the personal representative so the family does not have to navigate the probate process on its own during a period of grief.
How long does the family have to file?
Two years from the date of death under Maine’s general wrongful death statute of limitations. The clock is already running. We do not recommend waiting for the criminal case to finish, because the two-year period fills up faster than the family expects, and the evidence preservation work has to start in the first week regardless of the criminal timeline.
Can the family sue the ski resort, or only the man charged with her murder?
Both. The man charged with her murder is the direct perpetrator, and the family can name him as a defendant. He likely has no significant assets, but the civil judgment still matters for restitution and for the public record. The ski resort is the deeper pocket, and it can be sued on the premises liability, negligent security, negligent hiring, and negligent supervision theories, with the workers’ compensation exclusivity defense addressed case-by-case. The Boyne Resorts parent and the property management company are additional potential defendants. The complaint names every defendant we can identify and pleads every available theory.
Does workers’ compensation prevent the family from suing the resort?
Maine’s Workers’ Compensation Act, Title 39-A, is the exclusive remedy against the direct employer for injuries arising out of and in the course of employment. The defense will raise it. Maine courts have allowed civil claims against employers in intentional-tort situations and have not extended the exclusivity to third parties. The structure of the complaint is to plead the direct employer defendants carefully to preserve the exclusivity question, and to name every non-employer defendant freely, because workers’ comp does not shield them. The exclusivity defense is real but it is not absolute, and a Maine court will let the family put on the evidence and decide.
Does Maine cap the amount the family can recover?
Maine’s wrongful death statute, 18-C M.R.S. § 2-807, caps non-economic damages (loss of society, loss of companionship) at $750,000 and punitive damages at $250,000. Economic damages — medical bills, funeral expenses, lost future earnings, lost benefits, and the replacement cost of household services — are uncapped. The economic stream is the foundation of the case, and it is not capped. The cap on non-economic damages is real, and the family should know it exists.
What if the man charged with her murder has no money?
A civil judgment against him is still part of the case, because the judgment creates a public record, supports restitution in the criminal case, and is a predicate for any future collection if he ever acquires assets. The deeper recovery is from the resort, the parent company, and the insurance carrier. The carrier’s policy limits are discoverable in the civil case, and the policy is almost always larger than the family expects. The case is built around the deep pocket, not the personal defendant.
What is the difference between a wrongful death case and a survival action?
A wrongful death case belongs to the beneficiaries and compensates them for their losses. A survival action belongs to the estate and compensates Makayla for the conscious pain and suffering she experienced between the shooting and her death at Maine Medical Center. The two cases are pleaded together, but the beneficiaries and the estate receive different damages. The survival action is part of why the case has to be filed promptly — the medical records of her treatment in Portland are part of the proof, and those records have to be preserved and analyzed.
How much is a case like this worth?
The honest answer is that we do not know the number until we have the records. The economic damages are uncapped and are driven by Makayla’s age, her worklife expectancy, her earnings, her benefits, and the medical and funeral costs. The non-economic damages are capped at $750,000. The punitive damages are capped at $250,000 and are available only on clear-and-convincing evidence of reckless indifference. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. The realistic range in a strong case with clean liability facts is in the high six figures to mid seven figures, with the upper end driven by the economic stream. We build the number with a forensic economist and a life-care planner after we have the records.
What should the family do right now, this week?
Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911. The call is free and confidential, and we are available 24/7. We will send the preservation letters the same day. We will coordinate with the prosecutor. We will not pressure the family. We will answer questions, we will explain the process, and we will give the family the tools to make the decisions. The single most important thing the family can do in the first week is to make sure the evidence is frozen before it is gone.
What evidence is most at risk of disappearing?
The Left Bank condominium surveillance footage is the most time-sensitive. Many residential surveillance systems overwrite on a rolling thirty-day loop. The resort’s HR records are the next priority, because they are governed by the resort’s internal retention policy, not by any statutory minimum. The 911 audio and the CAD records are typically held for years, but the request should be filed this week. The shooter’s personal phone and the resort-issued work phone are critical, and they need to be preserved by forensic imaging. The OSHA 300 log, the resort’s workplace violence prevention program, the security logs at Left Bank, and the prior complaint history are the records the family needs from Sugarloaf.
How long do these cases take?
The criminal case will take a year or more. The civil case can move in parallel, and it usually resolves in twelve to twenty-four months from filing, depending on the complexity of the discovery, the willingness of the defense to mediate, and the court’s calendar. The family should not wait for the criminal case to finish, because the two-year statute of limitations does not pause for the criminal proceeding. The first case we file will be the civil case, and it will move on its own track.
What if Makayla had children?
Children of the deceased are first-class beneficiaries under Maine’s wrongful death statute. Their loss-of-companionship and loss-of-guidance claims are substantial, and they are part of the case from day one. A guardian ad litem may need to be appointed to represent the children’s interests. The Maine probate court handles the appointment. The economic loss to the children, including the loss of the mother’s future earnings and benefits, is uncapped and is a major component of the case.
Is there a Maine crime victims compensation fund that can help with immediate expenses?
Yes. The Maine Victims’ Compensation Fund provides limited financial assistance to families of homicide victims for funeral expenses, medical expenses, and lost wages, subject to eligibility requirements and statutory caps. The application is separate from the wrongful death case and does not affect the family’s right to file the civil case. We help the family apply for the fund as part of the immediate financial planning, while the civil case develops.
What does it cost to hire Attorney911 for a case like this?
We work on contingency. There is no fee unless we win. The free consultation is the first conversation, and it is confidential. If the family decides to retain us, the fee is one-third of the recovery before trial and forty percent if the case goes to verdict. The costs of the case — the experts, the records, the filing fees — are advanced by the firm and reimbursed out of the recovery at the end. The family pays nothing out of pocket. The promise of contingency representation is the only way a family without resources can match a ski resort and its insurance carrier in court.
We are in Maine, not Texas. Can a Texas-based firm handle a Maine case?
Yes, for a Maine case the firm partners with local Maine counsel under a pro hac vice arrangement where required. The firm’s Maine trial team is built for exactly this work. The call goes to 1-888-ATTY-911, and the family reaches a firm that has been preparing for cases of this kind for more than two decades. The geographic location of the firm is not the geographic location of the case. The case is where the evidence is, where the witnesses are, and where the courthouse is. The firm is wherever the family needs it to be.
What if the family is not ready to call a lawyer yet?
That is okay. The family does not have to be ready. The call is free, the conversation is confidential, and there is no pressure to hire us. The family takes the time it needs. When the family is ready, we are ready. In the meantime, the family should know that the evidence clock is running, and the longer the family waits, the harder the evidence preservation becomes. The family does not have to hire us to get the preservation work started. A simple phone call to the resort, the property management company, and the police department, identifying the family as the victim’s next of kin and requesting preservation of relevant records, can be made in a single afternoon. We can guide the family through that phone call even if the family is not ready to retain us.
Hablamos Español. ¿Cómo podemos ayudar a su familia?
Lupe Peña is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. If the family prefers to communicate in Spanish, the firm can do the entire intake, the case strategy, the witness preparation, and the courtroom representation in Spanish. Para las familias que prefieren comunicarse en español, podemos manejar todo el caso en español. The call to 1-888-ATTY-911 connects the family with a Spanish-speaking intake. La llamada al 1-888-ATTY-911 le conectará con alguien que habla español.
If you have read this far, you are taking the first step. The next step is a single phone call. The number is 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. The case is taken on contingency, so there is no fee unless we win. We will answer the phone, we will answer your questions, and we will tell you the truth about what Maine law allows you to do for Makayla. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. What we can guarantee is that the evidence clock is running right now, and the only way to stop it is to pick up the phone.
Call Attorney911 at 1-888-ATTY-911 for a free consultation on a Maine wrongful death case.
Hire Ralph Manginello to represent your family in a wrongful death case in Maine.
Learn more about Attorney911’s wrongful death practice.
Review Attorney911’s full practice areas — workers’ compensation, workplace accidents, and more.