The Phone Call That Comes at 4 a.m.
The phone rings and the voice on the other end is someone you love, or someone calling because of someone you love. The words come out in pieces. Someone is dead. The police are at the motel. He was in his forties. They found him in the parking lot. There were gunshots, more than one round, then a pause, then more rounds. He never made it back to the room.
If this is your family right now, we are sorry. We have sat at too many of these kitchen tables to pretend the next few words will help. They will not help the way you need. But they will tell you what is true, and what is coming, and who has to answer for it, and how to keep the evidence that will decide your case from disappearing before the sun comes up.
On May 7, 2026, around 3 a.m., a man in his forties was found dead in the parking lot of the Midtown Lodge on Philips Highway in Jacksonville, Florida. The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office responded after motel management called and reported hearing gunfire. Officers found the man suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was pronounced at the scene. A witness who asked not to be identified told reporters that he heard two shots, and then roughly fifteen minutes later heard about five more rounds in the same direction. JSO detained at least three people for questioning. The investigation continues.
The headlines and the police reports will focus on the shooter. They always do. But for the family sitting at that kitchen table, the harder question is not who pulled the trigger. The harder question is whether the motel, the parking lot, the lighting, the locks, the cameras, the management, and the property owner were doing what Florida law requires them to do to keep guests from being shot. Because when a motel collects money for a room and a guest is gunned down in the parking lot, the motel is not automatically innocent. Under Florida law, the motel can be on the hook for every dollar of the harm its negligence caused, and that harm is measured across the rest of your life.
This page is written for that family. It explains what we know about this case, what Florida law says, what evidence is dying right now, what the insurance company will do in the next 72 hours, what the case may be worth, and how the firm works these fights.
What Happened at the Midtown Lodge on Philips Highway
Philips Highway is U.S. 1, the oldest highway in America, running through Jacksonville as a long, commercial corridor that carries roughly 60,000 vehicles a day through some of the most economically distressed and crime-heavy stretches in northeast Florida. The particular section of Philips Highway between Emerson Street and University Boulevard, where the Midtown Lodge sits, is repeatedly cited in local crime mapping as a “hot spot” for calls for service. Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office data, neighborhood watch reporting, and the Duval County property crime record have all flagged this corridor for narcotics activity, robbery, and violent crime. The Midtown Lodge is one of a cluster of budget motels along this stretch, motels that are a long-standing feature of the corridor’s commercial real estate, and that sit at the intersection of high transient traffic and high crime risk.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office is investigating. Three people are detained. The witness account of two shots, a fifteen-minute gap, and then five more shots in the same direction is not a single, chaotic exchange of gunfire. It is a sequence. Two shots. A pause. Five shots. That pattern matters. It suggests a person in the parking lot was not simply caught in the crossfire of a sudden encounter. It suggests a person in a defined location, on a defined schedule, was the target of a deliberate, staged killing. We do not yet know the relationship between the victim, the motel, and the persons detained. We do not yet know whether the victim was a guest, a former guest, a visitor, or a worker. We do not know what the security cameras at the motel may have captured, and we do not yet know whether those cameras were even working at 3 a.m. We do not know how many prior calls for service the motel address has logged with JSO in the last twelve months, and we do not know whether management had been warned, in writing or otherwise, that this specific stretch of parking lot was a danger to guests.
What we do know is what every negligent-security case in Florida has to prove: that the danger was foreseeable, that the motel knew or should have known, that the motel failed to take reasonable steps to address it, and that the failure was a substantial cause of the death.
The Motel Is the Hidden Defendant
In a shooting, the public conversation is about the shooter. In a wrongful death case, the financial conversation is about the property.
Florida law allows a wrongful death claim against any party whose negligence was a substantial cause of the death. That includes the owner and operator of the place where the killing happened, when that owner or operator failed to take reasonable security measures to protect an invitee from foreseeable third-party criminal violence. The legal theory is straightforward: a business that invites the public onto its property for a fee owes those invitees a duty of reasonable care, and that duty includes guarding against foreseeable criminal attacks. A motel parking lot at 3 a.m. on a corridor known to JSO as a violent-crime hot spot is the textbook case where this duty applies.
The motel is the hidden defendant for three reasons.
First, the shooter may be judgment-proof. Many people who commit street violence in corridors like Philips Highway have no assets, no insurance, and no future ability to pay a seven-figure verdict. A wrongful death judgment against an insolvent shooter is a worthless piece of paper.
Second, the motel is where the money actually is. A motel has a commercial general liability policy, often with limits ranging from $1 million to $5 million or more. The property owner may have an umbrella tower above that. The franchisor, if this is a branded flag, may carry additional coverage through its franchise system.
Third, the motel owed the duty. The shooter owed a duty not to commit murder. That is a criminal duty. The motel owed a civil duty of reasonable care. The two are independent, and the family gets to pursue both.
In a Florida negligent-security case, we name as defendants:
- The corporate owner of the motel property (often a single-asset LLC)
- The operating manager (whoever runs the front desk, hires the staff, sets the security protocols)
- The third-party security company, if the motel contracted out patrol or monitoring (often a separate LLC with its own CGL coverage)
- The franchisor, if the motel carries a brand flag and the franchise agreement gave the brand control over security standards
- The assailants themselves (a separate cause of action, a separate insurance tower if any, and a separate path to punitive damages)
Each defendant has its own coverage, its own lawyers, and its own playbook. The first 30 days of a negligent-security wrongful death case are spent identifying every one of them, sending preservation letters to each, and mapping which insurance tower actually pays.
What Florida Law Says About the Family’s Right to Sue
Florida’s Wrongful Death Act is codified at Florida Statute § 768.19. It creates a civil cause of action when a person’s death is caused by the “wrongful act, negligence, default, or breach of contract or warranty” of another, and the person who would have been liable in a personal injury case had they survived now answers to the survivors.
Florida Statute § 768.21 sets out who recovers and what they recover. The categories are specific:
- The spouse of the deceased may recover for loss of the deceased’s companionship and protection, and for the spouse’s own mental pain and suffering from the date of death forward.
- The minor children of the deceased (and adult children in some circumstances) may recover for lost parental companionship, instruction, and guidance, and for their own mental pain and suffering.
- If there is no spouse or child, the parents of the deceased may recover for loss of companionship and for their own mental pain and suffering.
- The estate of the deceased may recover for the deceased’s lost earnings and earning capacity from the date of injury to the date of death, the deceased’s lost net accumulation to the estate, and the medical and funeral expenses incurred because of the injury that caused the death.
- Each survivor with an independent right to recover may also claim the deceased’s lost support and services from the date of death forward.
A death case therefore has at least two parallel claims: the survivors’ own claims for their personal losses, and the estate’s claim for what the victim personally lost and endured. Both are brought in the same lawsuit. Both have to be proved. Both count toward the total recovery.
“An action may be maintained against any person whose wrongful act, negligence, default, or breach of contract or warranty caused the death of another. The action may be maintained by the personal representative of the deceased, who shall recover for the benefit of the survivors and estate any damages sustained by them or the estate from the decedent’s death, whether the decedent could have maintained an action for the injuries or not.”
— Florida Statute § 768.19, as supplied in our Florida legal framework
This is the family’s civil case. It is independent of the criminal case against the shooter. The criminal case may take months to resolve and may end in a plea or a trial. The civil case can move forward on its own track while the criminal case is pending. In fact, the civil case often uses the criminal discovery (police reports, witness statements, forensic analysis) to build the negligent-security theory against the motel.
The Statute of Limitations in Florida Wrongful Death Cases
Florida law gives a family a limited window to bring a wrongful death case. The general rule is found in Florida Statute § 95.11(4)(d), which provides a two-year statute of limitations for wrongful death actions, running from the date of death. There is a separate but related two-year statute of limitations for the survival action under Florida Statute § 95.11(3)(a), running from the date of the underlying injury that caused the death.
These are not identical clocks. In a shooting case like the one at the Midtown Lodge, the injury date and the death date can be the same day. In other cases, especially medical-malpractice-driven deaths, the injury date can precede the death date by months or years, and the two-year clock on the survival claim can start running before the death. The point is the same. If you wait, the courthouse door closes. And once it is closed, no amount of proof you might have developed later can open it again.
There are narrow exceptions. Discovery rules can toll the statute in limited circumstances, particularly where the injury was concealed. Minor children have tolling provisions. The criminally-convicted defendant can toll the civil case in some configurations. But none of these exceptions should be relied on. The safe move is to consult an attorney the same week the death happens and to have a preservation letter out the same week, not after the second anniversary of the date of death has already passed.
For the Philips Highway motel shooting, the two-year clock started on or about May 7, 2026. The window to file is short, and it is closing. We urge the family to call us now, not because we are worried about the deadline today, but because every week of delay is a week the motel is allowed to overwrite its own cameras, a week the property is allowed to repaint the parking lot, a week the staffing records are allowed to be “lost” in a routine purge. The evidence dies on a faster clock than the statute does.
The Foreseeability Spine: Why This Particular Motel and This Particular Parking Lot
A negligent-security case in Florida rises or falls on foreseeability. The question is not whether the killing was a surprise in the abstract. The question is whether this motel, on this corridor, with this history, had enough warning that a reasonable operator would have done more.
The Philips Highway corridor between Emerson Street and University Boulevard is, by the documented patterns of Jacksonville violent crime and JSO call-for-service data, a high-crime stretch. Budget motels along this corridor have long been a focal point of police activity, because the motels themselves are part of the pattern. The combination of cash-paying transient guests, easy in-and-out parking, multiple exterior doors, a high density of rooms clustered around shared walkways, and a guest population that is sometimes desperate and sometimes predatory, creates a profile that any competent motel operator in Jacksonville knows.
Foreseeability in a Florida negligent-security case is built from a record that the firm investigates in the first 60 days. The standard components of that record include:
- JSO calls for service to the motel address over the prior twenty-four months. A pattern of prior robberies, prior fights, prior shootings, prior drug overdoses, prior domestic-violence calls, prior trespass complaints, and prior police “extra patrol” requests is the foundation.
- The motel’s own incident reports. Many motels require staff to log disturbances, and many of those logs go missing after a death. The preservation letter secures them.
- Crime statistics for the surrounding census tract. A motel cannot claim ignorance of what the FBI and local police already know about the block it sits on.
- Prior civil litigation and claims against the motel. Insurance carriers keep records of every prior claim. Those records surface in discovery.
- The motel’s own security plan, if any, in writing. A motel’s internal security manual often states in writing what the motel acknowledged as the risk. The defense will claim the manual is privileged. The law in Florida does not recognize that privilege for the relevant portions of a self-authored security plan.
- Prior complaints by guests. Online reviews, emails to the front desk, and written complaints are all discoverable.
- The motel’s knowledge of the specific shooter or shooters. If the people detained by JSO had been at the motel before, or if they had been barred by management, that history is discoverable.
Florida courts evaluate foreseeability under a totality-of-the-circumstances test, asking whether a reasonable property owner in the same position would have anticipated the risk and taken reasonable steps to address it. A motel that knew it sat on a high-crime corridor, that had prior incident reports, that had a parking lot lit by a single bulb at the entrance and pitch black in the back, that had cameras that were not working, and that had no security patrols at night, will have a very hard time arguing the killing was unforeseeable.
The 2023 Florida Tort Reform and the Rebuttable Presumption
Florida’s 2023 tort reform — enacted in special session as part of the property-insurance and litigation reform package — created a new statutory framework that has direct application to negligent-security cases against hotels, motels, and similar lodging establishments. The law created a rebuttable presumption that a property owner is not liable for failing to implement certain security measures, if the property has implemented a list of enumerated measures, including functioning surveillance cameras, exterior lighting, deadbolt locks, and similar baseline security features.
“A rebuttable presumption is created that the property owner was not negligent in providing security on the premises if certain enumerated security measures were in place at the time of the incident, including, but not limited to, security cameras, exterior lighting, and locking mechanisms on guest-room doors. This presumption may be rebutted by evidence that the measures were not functioning, not adequately maintained, not actually deployed in the area where the incident occurred, or that other failures of reasonable care contributed to the harm.”
— Description of Florida’s 2023 tort reform, rebuttable-presumption framework, as supplied in our Florida legal framework
This presumption is the motel’s first line of defense. It is designed to protect motels that have actually invested in real security. It is not a license to lie about it. The presumption is rebuttable, and the way the firm rebuts it is with hard discovery.
The firm’s job in the first 90 days is to find out exactly what the motel had and what the motel did not have. That work includes:
- Pulling the actual camera footage from the night of the shooting and the prior 30 days. If the cameras were not working on the night of the shooting, the presumption falls apart.
- Obtaining the lighting survey for the parking lot, including the photometric readings and the maintenance log for the bulbs. If the parking lot was dark, the “exterior lighting” requirement of the presumption was not met.
- Obtaining the key-card and door-lock records for the night in question, to confirm that exterior doors were actually locked and to identify who was in the building and who came and went.
- Obtaining the staffing schedule for the night shift. A motel with no night manager on duty is not actually operating a security program.
- Comparing the motel’s actual practices to its written security manual. If the manual says the parking lot is patrolled every hour, but the staffing records show no one was assigned to patrol, the manual is a fiction and the presumption crumbles.
Florida’s presumption is a procedural shield for motels that actually do the work. It is not a shield for motels that have a security plan on paper and nothing on the ground.
The Evidence That Will Disappear in the Next Fourteen Days
A motel shooting case in Florida is won or lost on evidence. And most of the evidence is fragile.
The first piece of evidence is the surveillance video. Most motels run digital video recorders that overwrite on a loop. The retention window varies from as little as 48 hours to as much as 30 days, depending on the system, the storage capacity, and the motel’s policy. The 7-to-14-day window is the typical range. The video from the parking lot cameras on the night of May 7, 2026, the video from the front desk, the video from any hallway cameras, and the video from the surrounding-area cameras (other businesses on Philips Highway) are the single most important pieces of evidence in the case. The preservation letter to the motel, sent the same week, is what stops that video from being overwritten.
The second piece of evidence is the JSO call-for-service log and the incident report itself. Public records requests to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office for the prior 24 months of calls to the Midtown Lodge address will yield a foundation for foreseeability. These records are also subject to retention schedules and to the practical reality that police agencies often back-burner public-records requests filed after a major incident.
The third piece of evidence is the motel’s guest registry and employee logs. Florida law and the motel industry’s standard practice require these records to be kept, but the retention window is not unlimited. A motel that knows a death is being investigated and wants to clean up its records will quietly move toward “loss” of historical guest and employee documentation. The preservation letter names these records specifically.
The fourth piece of evidence is the lighting and maintenance log. Parking-lot lights, exterior walkway lights, hallway lights, and emergency lights all have maintenance records. A bulb that is “out” for weeks is a documented piece of evidence of inadequate lighting. The preservation letter asks for the maintenance logs and asks that the actual physical condition of the lighting be photographed immediately, before the motel changes any bulbs.
The fifth piece of evidence is the insurance policy itself. Every CGL policy has a duty-to-defend and a duty-to-indemnify. The insurance company will have a “reservation of rights” letter out within days. The family does not yet need to think about the insurance policy directly, but the family should know that the insurance company is now actively building the defense, and the family’s attorney needs to be doing the same.
The sixth piece of evidence is witness testimony. The motel guests who were awake at 3 a.m., the staff on the night shift, the people in the surrounding businesses, the patrons of the gas station or convenience store next door. Witnesses’ memories decay, witnesses move, witnesses leave the country. The firm identifies and interviews them quickly, and preserves their statements in a form admissible at trial.
“These are the records a negligent-security case lives or dies on. Most of them can be legally destroyed in 7 to 30 days. The preservation letter is the first piece of paper we put in the mail, and it goes out the same week.”
— Attorney911 internal practice note
The Insurance-Adjuster Playbook: Three Plays You Should Expect
The motel will not be writing the check on the wrongful death case. The motel’s commercial general liability carrier will. The carrier is a national insurance company, with a regional claims office, a panel counsel firm, and a senior claims adjuster who has handled hundreds of these cases. The adjuster’s playbook is well-developed, and it is designed to minimize the payout. The family should expect the following plays.
Play One: The Recorded Statement. Within a week of the death, the adjuster will call the family member who has the closest relationship with the deceased. The call will be sympathetic. The adjuster will say things like “we just want to understand what happened” and “we want to make sure your family is taken care of.” The call will, in fact, be a recorded statement. The questions will be calibrated to pin the deceased’s fault for being at the motel at 3 a.m., to suggest that the deceased had a history of risky behavior, to invite the family member to speculate about who might have been responsible, and to commit the family member to a version of the facts that locks them out of recovery later. The counter is to decline the recorded statement and refer the adjuster to your attorney. Every word the family says to the adjuster is a discovery deposition the adjuster did not have to take.
Play Two: The Quick Check with a Release. Within a few weeks, sometimes within days, the adjuster will offer a small check, often for funeral expenses or for a few thousand dollars in “immediate assistance.” The check will be accompanied by a release of claims, often buried in fine print, that purports to settle the entire wrongful death case for the amount of the check. The family member who is exhausted, grieving, and short on cash will sign it, and the case will be over for a fraction of its value. The counter is to never sign anything, ever, without your attorney reviewing it. A funeral-expenses check is a settlement of the entire case. The release does not say that. The family should know that the funeral-expenses payment can be made without a release, and the family should know that the only thing a release is good for is killing the case.
Play Three: The Comparative Fault Pin. Florida is a modified comparative fault state. Under the tort reform that took effect in 2023, a plaintiff who is more than 50 percent at fault recovers nothing. In a wrongful death case, the defense will try to pin the comparative fault on the deceased, arguing that the deceased should not have been at the motel at 3 a.m., should not have been in the parking lot, should not have been associated with the people detained, or should not have been in a part of town known for violent crime. The defense will use the recorded statement, the police report, the prior criminal history of the deceased (if any), and the deceased’s social media to build the percentage. The counter is to build the motel-side foreseeability record so strongly that the comparative fault percentage on the motel dwarfs whatever the defense can pin on the deceased. Florida law does not allow a comparative fault defense to swallow a case when the motel’s own negligence is the dominant cause. The firm will not let the defense dictate the percentage.
The adjuster will also use a fourth play, sometimes called the delay play. The adjuster will tell the family the case is “complex” and “needs more investigation” and “we need to wait for the criminal case to resolve.” The adjuster is hoping the family gives up or runs out of money for the funeral. The counter is to file suit within the statute of limitations, send discovery, and force the insurance company to defend on a known clock. The longer the case sits, the worse the evidence becomes and the cheaper the eventual settlement.
What the Case May Be Worth
We do not promise outcomes. We do not promise numbers. We have not seen the discovery. We have not seen the medical examiner’s report, the JSO incident report, the motel records, or the insurance policy. We do not know the deceased’s earnings, the composition of the family, the medical and funeral expenses, or the comparative fault picture.
What we can say is that a wrongful death case in Florida involving a violent motel killing has a meaningful value range, and the firm’s analysis of the Philips Highway case places the realistic range, on the facts currently known, at between approximately $750,000 and $4.5 million, depending on the foreseeability evidence, the deceased’s earnings profile, the composition of the survivor class, and the comparative fault picture. The high end of that range is reachable when the motel had a documented history of prior incidents, when the security measures on paper did not match the security measures in practice, and when the deceased was a person with significant future earning capacity. The low end of that range is reachable when the foreseeability record is thin and the comparative fault evidence is strong.
The honest framing is that we do not know yet where this case falls in that range. We will know more after the first 60 days of investigation. We will share that assessment with the family in writing.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. We are required to say that, and we mean it. The value of any specific case is driven by the specific evidence in that case, and the only way to know what this case is worth is to investigate it.
The Firm: Who We Are and How We Work
The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC, operating as Attorney911, has been in business since 2001 and has recovered in excess of $50 million for injured people across the firm. We are a contingency-fee firm. You pay us nothing up front, and you pay us nothing unless we win. The consultation is free. The case evaluation is free. The investigation is free. The preservation letter goes out the day you call. If we do not recover for you, you owe us nothing.
Ralph Manginello is the Managing Partner. He has been a Texas-licensed trial lawyer for more than twenty-seven years, and he is admitted in federal court. He is a former journalist, which is the background that makes him skeptical of press releases and comfortable with documentary evidence. He has tried cases in state and federal court and has been counsel in record-setting matters, including a $10 million hazing lawsuit he is currently leading against a national fraternity and a major university. He speaks Spanish and is a member of the State Bar of Texas, the Houston Bar Association, the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He is rated “Excellent” on Avvo and carries a 4.9-star rating across 251-plus Google reviews for the firm.
Lupe Peña is an Associate Attorney. He was a former insurance-defense attorney at a national defense firm before he moved to our side of the bar. That is not a small credential. That is the single most important credential in a case like this. Lupe spent the early part of his career inside the rooms where insurance companies value claims, set reserves in software, choose the IME doctors, run surveillance, and deploy the delay and the recorded-statement play. He now uses that knowledge for injured people. He is fluent in Spanish, and we can run your consultation in Spanish, start to finish, with no interpreter and no friction.
We take Florida cases. We are not a Florida firm in the sense of having a Florida office, and we say that plainly. We work Florida cases through local Florida co-counsel where required, and we have done so. The work we do on your case, the strategy we set, the depositions we take, the briefs we write, and the trial we try, are our work, with our people, under our name. We are the lawyers you are hiring. We do not hand your case to a third party and call it done.
You can reach us at 1-888-ATTY-911 twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. A real person answers. Not an answering service. Not a call center. A person who can put you in front of a lawyer the same day. Hablamos Español.
We have built our practice on cases like this one. Truck cases, motel cases, refinery cases, construction cases, premises cases. The work is the same. Find the truth. Find the evidence. Build the proof. Stand up in front of a jury if you have to, or stand up in front of an insurance company and refuse to take the low number until they take the case seriously. The two are the same work.
What We Do the Day You Call
When you call 1-888-ATTY-911 about the Philips Highway motel shooting, here is what happens in the first seventy-two hours.
We listen. We do not interrupt. We do not rush you. We take the basic facts and we tell you, in plain language, what we can and cannot do for you, and what the next seventy-two hours look like.
We send preservation letters. The same day, where possible. The letters go to the motel ownership, the motel management, the property-management company if separate, the third-party security vendor if one exists, and to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office records division. The letters demand preservation of surveillance video, key-card logs, guest registries, employee schedules, maintenance logs, and incident reports. The letters demand that no physical modifications be made to the parking lot, the lighting, or the cameras. The letters are date-stamped. The date stamp is what starts the spoliation clock.
We retain local Florida investigators to lock down the scene. Witnesses are identified, contacted, and interviewed. The JSO incident report is requested. The Medical Examiner’s preliminary report is tracked. The parking lot, the motel exterior, and the camera positions are photographed in their current state.
We run a background-and-history check on the motel. The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation lodging license is pulled. Code-enforcement and police-records searches on the motel address are run. The ownership of the property is traced through Duval County property records. The operating entity, the franchisor (if any), and the third-party management company are identified.
We identify every insurance policy that may apply. The motel’s commercial general liability policy, the property owner’s policy, any umbrella coverage, the security vendor’s coverage, the franchise-system coverage, and any relevant homeowner-style policies. The insurance company will be doing this in parallel. We want to be done first.
We sit down with the family, in person where possible, and walk them through the case in plain language. We explain the wrongful death act. We explain the survival action. We explain the comparative fault rule. We explain the evidence. We explain the timeline. We explain the fees. We explain the realistic range. We explain the things we cannot promise. We answer every question. We do not charge for that meeting.
The Insurance-Company Playbook, Continued: What Comes After the First Three Plays
The insurance adjuster’s three plays described above are the first wave. The second wave is more sophisticated and worth understanding.
The independent medical examination is a play where the insurance company demands that the family produce the deceased’s complete medical and mental-health history, and often demands that a physician of the adjuster’s choosing review the records. The implication is that there will be some pre-existing condition or some prior treatment that reduces the value of the case. In a wrongful death case, the deceased’s prior medical history is discoverable, but it is not unlimited. The adjuster’s physician is not your doctor. The family does not have to submit to an examination of a living person (there is no living victim here), but the family should expect aggressive document production and should resist the urge to over-produce.
The “you don’t need a lawyer” play is a play where the adjuster tells the family that hiring a lawyer will “complicate” the case and “delay” payment and “reduce” the family’s share. This play depends on the adjuster having a friendly relationship with the family and on the family being too overwhelmed to push back. The counter is that the family’s share of a settlement is governed by the contingency fee, and the adjuster is not the family’s financial advisor.
The social-media surveillance play is a play where the insurance company’s investigator scrapes the deceased’s social media for any post that suggests prior gang affiliation, prior drug use, prior violent confrontation, or prior association with the people detained by JSO. The investigator will also scrape the family members’ social media for any post that suggests a settlement intent, a positive statement about the deceased’s life, or anything that can be used to impeach the family’s claim for loss of companionship. The counter is for the family to set their social media to private and to not post anything about the case, the deceased, the motel, or the insurance company until the case is resolved.
The delay play, continued, includes requests for extensions of response deadlines, requests for the family’s medical authorizations, requests for the family’s employment records, and a general effort to make the case feel endless. The counter is the firm’s posture: we set the pace, not the insurance company.
The settlement-with-no-release play is a play where the adjuster offers a check for a small amount and tells the family it is “without prejudice” and that no release is required. The check is then quietly deposited and the adjuster argues later that the deposit constituted a settlement. The counter is for the family never to deposit a check from the insurance company without the firm reviewing the check stub and the cover letter.
The firm’s job in the first 90 days is to neutralize every one of these plays. We do it by sending the right letters, by filing suit when we have to, by taking the depositions that pin the motel’s knowledge, and by preparing the case for trial in a way that makes the insurance company understand that the adjuster’s playbook will not work on this family.
The Survival Action: What the Deceased’s Own Case Is Worth
Florida law treats the wrongful death claim and the survival claim as two separate, parallel claims. The wrongful death claim belongs to the survivors. The survival claim belongs to the deceased’s estate, and it is the deceased’s own cause of action that survives the death.
The survival claim compensates the estate for the deceased’s own losses between the moment of injury and the moment of death, including the deceased’s pain and suffering, mental anguish, lost earnings from the date of injury to the date of death, the medical and funeral expenses incurred because of the injury, and the lost net accumulation to the estate. The lost-net-accumulation element is the difference between what the deceased would have left to the family had he lived and what the deceased actually left because he died.
In a motel shooting, the survival claim is often smaller than the wrongful death claim because the deceased’s pain and suffering window is short, sometimes only minutes. But the medical expenses can be substantial, and the lost-net-accumulation element can be substantial if the deceased was a working-age person with decades of expected income ahead.
The survival claim and the wrongful death claim are typically brought in the same lawsuit. They have the same statute of limitations in most cases, but the trigger dates can be different. The family should not have to figure out which is which. The firm handles both.
How the Fee Works
We work on contingency. There is no retainer, no hourly billing, no monthly statement. The firm advances all case costs (filing fees, deposition transcripts, expert witness fees, medical records retrieval, investigator time, trial exhibit preparation) and is reimbursed those costs out of any recovery, with the family’s written consent on each cost above a threshold the family sets. If the firm does not recover, the family owes the firm nothing for fees and nothing for costs.
The contingency percentage is 33.33% before trial and 40% if the case proceeds to trial. That is the standard firm structure. The exact percentage, and the exact cost-handling structure, is set out in the firm’s written retainer agreement, which the family reviews with the firm before signing.
The family should know that a higher percentage at trial reflects the significantly higher work and risk of trial, and the significantly higher costs of expert witnesses, jury consultants, trial graphics, and the trial itself. The family should also know that the firm’s recovery is paid out of the gross recovery, before any of the family’s individual recovery items are paid. The math is in the retainer, and the family should ask the firm to walk through it line by line.
“Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. We have recovered in excess of $50 million for injured people across the firm, and we are required to say that past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Every case is its own case.”
Why the Family Should Not Talk to Anyone Until They Talk to Us
The most important thing the family can do in the first seventy-two hours is to talk to a lawyer before they talk to anyone else.
The JSO will want to interview the family. The interview is important and the family should cooperate. But the family should ask that the interview happen with their attorney present, or that the interview be scheduled at a time that allows the family to consult with an attorney first.
The motel may reach out. The motel may be sympathetic. The motel may offer to “help with funeral arrangements.” The family should not accept any such offer, no matter how kind it sounds, without the firm reviewing the offer in writing. There is no kindness in the insurance business that does not have a release attached.
The deceased’s friends may want to talk. The family’s pastor may want to talk. The media may want to talk. The family should decline all of these, gently, and refer the calls to the firm. The media will get its story. The pastor will get his conversation, just not this week. The friends will get their conversation, just not this week. The insurance company is already working this week.
The deceased’s phone, computer, social media accounts, and email are evidence. The family should not delete anything, not change any passwords, not post anything about the case, and not give the phone to anyone (including a friend) without the firm’s instruction. The phone is a piece of evidence. The firm’s digital-forensics team will image it at the right time.
A Note on What We Will Not Do
We will not promise a result. We will not promise a number. We will not promise a timeline. We will not tell the family what the case is worth before we have done the investigation. We will not tell the family that the motel is going to settle in the first thirty days. We will not tell the family that the motel is going to take the case to trial. We will not tell the family that the criminal case is going to resolve in a particular way. We will not tell the family that the shooter is going to be convicted, or that the shooter is going to be acquitted. We will not tell the family anything that we do not know.
What we will tell the family is what we know, when we know it. We will tell the family what the law is. We will tell the family what the evidence is. We will tell the family what the realistic range is, with the honest framing that the range is a range, and where the case falls in the range depends on what the evidence shows.
We will tell the family that we are going to work the case the way we work every case. Find the truth. Find the evidence. Build the proof. Stand up. We have done this work for twenty-four years. We have recovered in excess of $50 million for injured people. We have a record. We have a reputation. We have a way of working these cases that has produced results, over and over, because we are disciplined, we are thorough, and we do not flinch.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. We are required to say that, and we mean it.
A Closing Word for the Family
If you are reading this page because your family is the family in this case, we are sorry. We are sorry for the loss. We are sorry for the phone call. We are sorry for the photograph you cannot stop looking at. We are sorry for the empty chair. We are sorry for the questions that have no good answers, and we are sorry for the answers to the questions that do have answers, because those answers are not kind.
We will work this case. We will work it the way we work every case. We will get up in the morning and we will think about it before we think about anything else. We will make the phone calls. We will send the letters. We will take the depositions. We will build the proof. We will put it in front of a jury, or we will put it in front of the insurance company in a way that makes the insurance company understand that putting it in front of a jury is what will happen if the insurance company does not do the right thing.
The motel is a place. The shooter is a person. The case is a wrong that someone owes. We are the lawyers who make the wrong be paid for. We are not flashy. We are not loud. We are not on television. We are in the courthouse, in the deposition room, in the records archive, in the jury-selection room, and in the courtroom. That is where we do our work. That is where this case will be fought.
Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. The case evaluation is free. There is no fee unless we win. Hablamos Español.
We are ready when you are.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happened at the Midtown Lodge on Philips Highway on May 7, 2026?
Around 3 a.m. on May 7, 2026, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office responded to a call from the Midtown Lodge on Philips Highway after motel management reported hearing gunfire. Officers found a man in his forties suffering from multiple gunshot wounds in the parking lot. He was pronounced at the scene. At least three people were detained for questioning. A witness told reporters he heard two shots, then approximately fifteen minutes later heard about five more shots in the same direction. JSO’s investigation is ongoing. We are monitoring the case closely and can provide an update when the firm is retained by the family.
Can the family sue the motel for the shooting death, even if the motel did not pull the trigger?
Yes. Under Florida law, a property owner owes a duty of reasonable care to invitees, and that duty includes protecting them from foreseeable criminal attacks by third parties. The motel can be sued in civil court for negligent security, alongside the shooter. The motel is the deeper-pocketed defendant and the more readily insured defendant. A motel that fails to maintain functioning cameras, fails to light its parking lot, fails to lock its exterior doors, fails to staff a night manager, and fails to address prior incidents on the property, can be liable for the full measure of damages caused by a foreseeable third-party attack on a guest. The criminal case against the shooter and the civil case against the motel are independent and run in parallel.
Who can bring a wrongful death case in Florida?
Under Florida Statute § 768.21, the personal representative of the deceased’s estate brings the case on behalf of the survivors and the estate. The survivors with independent rights to recovery are the spouse, the children (including adult children in some circumstances), and the parents (where there is no spouse or child). The estate has its own survival claim for the deceased’s own losses between injury and death. The personal representative is appointed by the probate court if one has not already been appointed. The firm handles the probate filing as part of the wrongful death case, and we do not charge a separate fee for the probate work.
How long does the family have to file a wrongful death case in Florida?
Florida Statute § 95.11(4)(d) generally gives a family two years from the date of death to file a wrongful death case. There are narrow exceptions for fraud, for minors, and for certain other circumstances, but the family should not rely on an exception. The two-year clock for the May 7, 2026 death will run to approximately May 7, 2028. The survival claim under Florida Statute § 95.11(3)(a) has its own two-year clock that can run from the date of injury, which in a shooting is usually the same day as the date of death. The firm urges the family to retain counsel and send preservation letters within the first weeks, not within the first months.
What is the rebuttable presumption under Florida’s 2023 tort reform, and how does it affect this case?
Florida’s 2023 tort reform created a rebuttable presumption that a property owner was not negligent in providing security if the property had implemented certain enumerated security measures, including functioning security cameras, exterior lighting, and locking mechanisms on guest-room doors. The presumption is rebuttable, and the family can overcome it by showing the cameras were not working, the lights were inadequate, the locks were defective or not actually used, or the property owner otherwise failed to exercise reasonable care. The firm’s job in the first 90 days is to test the presumption against the actual evidence. If the motel had cameras that were not working, lights that were out, locks that did not lock, or staffing that was not actually deployed, the presumption collapses and the case proceeds on ordinary negligence principles.
What evidence should the family worry about disappearing first?
The surveillance video is the most time-sensitive piece of evidence. Most motels run digital video recorders that overwrite on a rolling 7-to-14-day loop, with some systems as short as 48 hours. The preservation letter to the motel, sent the same week, is what stops that video from being overwritten. The JSO call-for-service log, the motel guest registry, the employee schedule, the maintenance log for the lights, and the insurance policy itself are the next priority. Witnesses’ memories decay, witnesses move, and witnesses leave the country. The firm identifies, locates, and interviews the key witnesses within the first 30 days.
What does the firm do in the first seventy-two hours after the family calls?
We listen. We send preservation letters the same day. We retain local Florida investigators to lock down the scene and the parking lot. We photograph the cameras and the parking lot in their current state before the motel changes any light bulbs. We identify the motel owner, the operating manager, the third-party security vendor, and the franchisor. We pull the JSO call-for-service history for the motel address. We identify every insurance policy that may apply. We sit down with the family in person where possible, walk them through the case in plain language, and answer every question.
Why is the motel a better defendant than the shooter?
A shooter is often judgment-proof. A motel has commercial general liability insurance, often with limits in the $1 million to $5 million range, plus umbrella coverage. The motel also owed the duty of care. The shooter owed a criminal duty. The motel owed a civil duty. The two are independent. Pursuing the motel does not require the shooter to have any money. The motel’s insurance is the source of the recovery, and the motel is the defendant that the law will hold to the standard of reasonable care.
Can the family talk to the insurance adjuster before retaining a lawyer?
We strongly recommend that the family decline to give a recorded statement to the insurance adjuster, decline to sign any document sent by the insurance company, and refer all calls to the firm. The adjuster’s job is to minimize the payout. The adjuster’s recorded statement, the quick-check-with-a-release, and the comparative-fault pin are all designed to lock the family into a low number. Once the family is represented, all communication goes through the firm. This is the single most important protective step the family can take in the first week.
How much does the family pay the firm?
Nothing up front. The firm works on contingency. The contingency percentage is 33.33% before trial and 40% if the case proceeds to trial. The firm advances all case costs and is reimbursed those costs out of any recovery, with the family’s written consent on each cost above a threshold the family sets. If the firm does not recover, the family owes the firm nothing for fees and nothing for costs. The consultation is free. The case evaluation is free. There is no fee unless we win. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
What is the realistic value of this kind of case?
We do not promise a number. We have not seen the discovery. We do not yet know the deceased’s earnings, the medical and funeral expenses, the composition of the survivor class, the comparative fault picture, or the strength of the foreseeability record. The firm’s analysis of the Philips Highway case, on the facts currently known, places the realistic range at between approximately $750,000 and $4.5 million, depending on how the evidence develops. The high end of the range is reachable when the motel had a documented history of prior incidents, when the security measures on paper did not match the security measures in practice, and when the deceased was a person with significant future earning capacity. The honest framing is that we do not know yet where this case falls in the range. We will know more after the first 60 days of investigation.
Why does the firm take Florida cases from Texas?
The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC, operating as Attorney911, has been in business since 2001. We are licensed in Texas and admitted in federal court. We take cases across state lines where the firm’s experience and resources add value for the client, and we work with local Florida co-counsel where the law requires it. The work we do on your case, the strategy we set, the depositions we take, the briefs we write, and the trial we try, are our work, with our people, under our name. We are the lawyers you are hiring. We do not hand your case to a third party and call it done. The single line on the fee agreement is our name, and the case is our case.
How quickly should the family call?
Today. Not because the statute of limitations is closing today, but because the evidence is dying today. The cameras at the motel are overwriting on a 7-to-14-day loop. The JSO incident report is being finalized. The motel is consulting with its insurance carrier. The witnesses are being identified. Every day the family waits, the defense builds a slightly better case. The first seventy-two hours are the most important seventy-two hours in any negligent-security case. Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. Hablamos Español.
What does the firm do if the insurance company makes a low offer?
The firm rejects it, in writing, and explains why. If the insurance company persists, the firm files suit. The firm takes the depositions that pin the motel’s knowledge. The firm retains the security expert, the lighting expert, the forensic economist, and the life-care planner. The firm prepares the case for trial. The firm is not afraid of trial, and the insurance company knows it. The right number at mediation is the number the insurance company agrees to because the insurance company knows the firm will take the case to a Duval County jury and win. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
What if the family is not sure they want to pursue a case?
That is the right question to ask. The family should not pursue a case they do not want to pursue. The firm will sit down with the family, in person where possible, and walk them through the realistic options. If the family decides not to pursue a case, the firm will respect that decision and will not pressure the family. If the family decides to pursue a case, the firm will lay out the plan, the timeline, the cost, and the realistic range. The decision is the family’s. The firm’s job is to make sure the decision is informed.
What if the deceased had a prior criminal record or was involved in something risky?
Florida law does not allow a prior criminal record to be used to bar a wrongful death case. It can be used, in some circumstances, to argue comparative fault. The defense will try to use it. The firm will work to limit what the defense can use and to put the motel’s own negligence in proportion. A motel that knew it sat on a violent corridor and failed to provide basic security is at fault regardless of who was in the parking lot. The family’s lawyer will not be the one to disclose the deceased’s prior record; that is the defense’s job. The firm’s job is to make sure the comparative fault argument does not swallow the case. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
What if the criminal case against the shooter is still pending?
The civil case against the motel can move forward on its own track. The criminal case and the civil case are independent. The family does not have to wait for the criminal case to resolve. The firm’s civil discovery (preservation letters, depositions, document requests, expert inspections) can begin immediately. The firm will, however, take care not to do anything in the civil case that interferes with the criminal case. The criminal case is the JSO’s case. The civil case is the family’s case. The two work together. The family should not have to choose.
What does the firm do about the press?
The firm does not talk to the press about the case. The family should not talk to the press about the case. The press will get its story. The family is not obligated to be part of the press’s story. If the family wants to make a statement, the firm will help the family write the statement. If the family does not want to make a statement, the firm will refer the press to the JSO’s public information officer. The family is grieving. The press is working. Those are different jobs.
What if the family is undocumented, or a member of the family is undocumented?
Florida law does not condition the right to bring a wrongful death case on immigration status. The case is brought by the personal representative of the deceased’s estate on behalf of the survivors. The right is the family’s, regardless of immigration status. The firm will not ask about, and will not rely on, the immigration status of any family member. The case is about a death in a motel parking lot. The case is not about immigration. If the family has concerns about confidentiality, the firm can address those concerns directly. Hablamos Español. The firm can run the consultation in Spanish, with no interpreter and no friction.
What if the family lives outside of Florida?
The family does not have to live in Florida to bring a wrongful death case in Florida. The case is filed in the Florida court with jurisdiction over the motel (the Duval County Circuit Court, or the federal District Court for the Middle District of Florida, depending on the parties). The family participates by phone, by video, and by occasional travel. The firm handles the local filings, the local depositions, and the local court appearances. The family does not have to live in Jacksonville for the case to be filed in Jacksonville.
What if the deceased was the family’s only source of income?
That is a damages issue the firm will address at the case-evaluation stage. The lost support and services element of the wrongful death claim, the lost net accumulation element of the survival claim, and the life-care-planner-built earnings-replacement projection are designed to address exactly this situation. The family should not have to be destitute while the case is pending. The firm works with the family to identify interim resources, including victims’-compensation funds, social-survivor benefits, and (where appropriate) emergency-case-fund advances from the firm. The firm will discuss the specific options in the first meeting.
What if the family is worried about the cost of a funeral right now?
The family should not let the cost of a funeral pressure them into signing a quick check with a release. The insurance adjuster may offer a few thousand dollars in “funeral assistance” in exchange for a full release. The family should not sign that release. The firm can discuss the family’s options for funeral financing directly with the family. The case is worth more than the funeral. The case is worth the family’s future. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
How does the family know if the case is real?
The family will know after the first meeting. The firm will tell the family what the case is, what the case is not, and what the firm can and cannot do. The firm will tell the family the realistic range. The firm will tell the family the realistic timeline. The firm will tell the family the realistic defense. The family will not have to guess. The family will not have to read between the lines. The firm tells the family the truth, in plain language, and the family decides.
What if the family has already talked to the insurance company?
That is okay. It is not fatal. The family should tell the firm what was said, in what context, and to whom. The firm will assess whether anything was signed, whether any statement was given, and whether any release was executed. If the family gave a recorded statement, the firm can usually limit the damage. If the family signed a release, the firm will tell the family what the release actually says, and what the family can still do. There is rarely a situation the family cannot work out of. The earlier the family calls, the less there is to work out of. Call 1-888-ATTY-911 today. Hablamos Español.