You Just Lost Your Child at a Place That Was Supposed to Be Safe
The phone call came at night, the way these calls always do. Your son — a teenager, not yet old enough to drive himself to the appointment that mattered most to him that week — was at a short-term rental in Bath Township with other young people. The home had been booked online. A party had been planned, or grew into one, or was always the point. By the time you reached the hospital, or the coroner’s office, or simply the silence on the other end of the line, the future you had been building together was over in a way that no settlement and no courtroom can undo.
You are reading this because the legal paperwork has already been filed, or because someone you love is now considering whether it should be. This page is written for you. We are the trial attorneys at Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC — and we have spent more than two decades walking families through the specific, technical, and deeply personal work of holding a property owner, a platform, or a third party accountable when a violent death was preventable. What follows is the full expert treatment of your case type, grounded in Ohio law, built around what a Bath Township Summit County jury will be asked to decide, and aimed at one thing: making sure that when the time comes, the people responsible for the danger your child walked into cannot walk away from it.
“An action for wrongful death shall be brought in the name of the personal representative of the deceased person… and shall be for the exclusive benefit of the surviving spouse, the children, the parents… and the next of kin of the deceased person.”
— Ohio Revised Code § 2125.02(A), the Ohio Wrongful Death Act
What Happened at the Bath Township Rental, and Why It Is a Legal Case, Not Just a Tragedy
An Akron teenager was killed by gunfire during a gathering at a short-term rental property in Bath Township, Ohio. Summit County law enforcement responded. A criminal investigation was opened. The family of the deceased has now filed a wrongful death and negligent security lawsuit naming the property owner, the host, and the platform. The legal claims being asserted are not a substitute for the criminal case against the person who pulled the trigger — they are a separate, civil track whose job is different: to make the entities whose choices made the danger possible answer, in dollars, for the full cost of what those choices cost your family.
The reason this case exists in civil court, and not only in criminal court, is a specific and well-established principle of Ohio premises liability law. A property owner who opens a premises to the public — including through a short-term rental platform — owes a duty of reasonable care to the people lawfully on that property. That duty includes taking reasonable steps to protect guests from foreseeable criminal acts of third parties. When an owner rents out a home for a gathering, accepts payment, and either knew, or reasonably should have known, that the conditions and the use of the property created a risk of serious violence, and failed to take reasonable protective steps, the owner can be held civilly liable for the death that followed. Ohio courts have recognized this category of liability for decades. The presence of a criminal shooter does not erase the property owner’s independent duty — it is the very harm the duty was meant to prevent.
Ohio Law: The Wrongful Death Action and the Two-Year Deadline
Under Ohio Revised Code § 2125.02, a wrongful death action in Ohio is brought by the personal representative of the deceased person for the exclusive benefit of the surviving spouse, the children, the parents, the parents of the deceased if the deceased is unmarried and has no children, and any other next of kin. This is a statutory action with statutory beneficiaries, and identifying the right personal representative and the complete beneficiary class early is foundational work — a step where mistakes quietly kill meritorious cases.
The statute of limitations for wrongful death in Ohio is two years from the date of death, under Ohio Revised Code § 2305.10(A). That window is strict. It is not a soft suggestion. If the lawsuit is not filed within two years of the date of death, the case is over, and no Ohio court has the discretion to resurrect it except in narrow circumstances that almost never apply. A family that has just lost a child has every reason to be in shock and to take time to grieve; Ohio law does not pause for grief. The single most important thing a grieving family can do, after the funeral, is to talk to a lawyer who will preserve the case by filing the complaint within that two-year window — even before the family feels ready to litigate the merits.
This is not a sales pitch. It is the procedural reality of every Ohio wrongful death case we have handled, and it is the first conversation our intake team will have with you.
“An action for libel, slander, malicious prosecution, or false imprisonment… an action for personal injury… an action for causing death by a wrongful act, neglect, or default… shall be brought within two years after the cause thereof accrues.”
— Ohio Revised Code § 2305.10(A)
Ohio is also a modified comparative negligence state under Ohio Revised Code § 2315.33. A plaintiff who is found to be 50% or less at fault can still recover, with the recovery reduced in proportion to the plaintiff’s share of fault. A plaintiff found to be more than 50% at fault recovers nothing. The comparison applies to the conduct of the deceased, where relevant and provable, but it is the defense that bears the burden of proof on comparative fault. In a negligent security case arising out of a gathering at a private rental, the comparative-fault fight typically centers on the conduct of the third-party shooter and the conduct of whoever organized the gathering — not the deceased, who is the victim.
What Ohio Law Recognizes as a “Wrongful Death” in This Setting
A wrongful death in Ohio requires three things: (1) a death caused by a wrongful act, neglect, or default that would have entitled the deceased to bring a personal injury action had he lived; (2) the appointment of a personal representative to bring the claim; and (3) survival of the statutory beneficiaries. The “wrongful act, neglect, or default” element in a negligent security case is the property owner’s failure to exercise reasonable care — a breach of the duty the owner owed your son. The breach is not the shot; the breach is the absence of the security, screening, or supervision that would have prevented the shot.
The “negligent act” element also means the case is not foreclosed by the existence of a criminal shooter. Ohio recognizes that criminal acts of third parties are foreseeable in some settings and not in others, and that the property owner — not the guest — is in the best position to assess, screen, and control the risk. When the owner rents a home for a gathering without appropriate safeguards, the owner has assumed the risk-management role and can be held to the standard of someone who actually performed it.
The Negligent Security Claim: What You Have to Prove
In an Ohio negligent security case arising from a short-term rental shooting, the elements are familiar but the application is highly fact-specific. To recover, your family will need evidence — through testimony, documents, and expert work — of the following:
Duty. The property owner and the host (who may be the same person or different entities, depending on the ownership and management structure of this particular rental) owed a duty of reasonable care to the people lawfully on the property. The duty exists because the property was held out to paying guests through a commercial platform.
Breach. The owner failed to exercise that reasonable care. Breach in a shooting case typically comes from one or more of the following: failure to screen the booking; failure to refuse a booking with warning signs; failure to provide adequate exterior lighting; failure to install or maintain surveillance at entry points; failure to control the number of guests against the property’s capacity; failure to address prior complaints about prior gatherings; failure to require a noise or occupancy plan; failure to have a local contact who could respond.
Foreseeability of violence. This is the heart of every negligent security case. Ohio courts examine whether the risk of third-party criminal conduct was reasonably foreseeable on this property, at this gathering, in this neighborhood, given the known history. Foreseeability is typically proven through (a) prior police calls to the property; (b) prior complaints to the host or platform about gatherings, noise, or disruption; (c) the property’s location and surroundings; (d) the booking pattern (cash payment, last-minute booking, multiple unrelated guests); (e) prior similar incidents at other short-term rentals in the same jurisdiction. Bath Township is a low-crime, affluent residential community in Summit County, and that fact is a two-edged sword: the defense will argue that low-crime areas make violence unforeseeable; the response is that the very infrequency of violent crime in such communities means a known, recurring pattern of disruptive gatherings at a particular property is a louder warning than it would be in a higher-crime area, and that the owner with that information is the one with the duty to act.
Causation. The breach must be a substantial factor in producing the death. The defense will argue that the criminal shooter’s independent act is a superseding cause that breaks the chain. Ohio law rejects that argument when the property owner’s negligence created or increased the risk of exactly the kind of harm that occurred. In a short-term-rental shooting case, the argument is that the owner’s failure to screen, supervise, or control the gathering created the conditions under which an unsupervised group of strangers could obtain weapons, escalate a confrontation, and exchange gunfire. That is not a superseding cause defense that wins easily.
Damages. The death, the funeral, the loss of support and services, the loss of society and companionship, the grief, the loss of the future your son would have had. These are addressed in detail in the damages section below.
The Defendants: Who Can Be Sued in a Short-Term Rental Shooting Case
A short-term rental shooting case almost always has more than one defendant. The specific defendants in the Bath Township lawsuit have been publicly identified in the family’s filing, and the categories of potential defendants that recur in this case type include the following:
The property owner. The person or entity that holds legal title to the home. The owner has the primary duty to maintain the premises in a reasonably safe condition for guests and to control the conditions under which the home is rented.
The host. The host is the person or entity that lists the property on the platform and accepts the booking. The host may be the owner, a property manager, or a sub-letter. The host makes the screening and acceptance decisions about who is allowed to use the property, and those decisions are the focal point of the negligent-security inquiry.
The property management company. Many short-term rentals are managed by third parties that handle everything from listing to guest communication to key handover. The management company’s decisions about screening, guest count enforcement, and on-call response are independently actionable.
The booking platform. Whether the platform itself can be reached by a wrongful death claim is a more contested question. Platforms typically argue that they are merely a marketplace that connects hosts and guests, and that they are protected from liability for the conduct of either party. Ohio and federal case law on this question is evolving, and the outcome often turns on the platform’s specific conduct — whether it advertised safety features that it failed to provide, whether it ignored complaints about a host, whether it continued to surface a listing despite red flags, whether it had a role in screening or vetting. The platform’s role is asserted in the family’s filing, and the legal fight over whether that role creates direct liability is one of the live issues in the case.
The party organizer or host of the gathering. If someone organized the gathering or invited your son, that person’s role in creating the conditions of the shooting is also potentially actionable. The analysis is fact-specific and turns on what the organizer knew, what they promised about safety, and whether their conduct foreseeably contributed to the conditions that allowed the shooting to occur.
The shooter. The person who fired the weapon. In a wrongful death case, the shooter is often named as a defendant but is typically judgment-proof; the practical recovery runs against the property owner, host, and platform. The criminal case against the shooter is a separate matter pursued by the Summit County Prosecutor’s Office and, depending on age and circumstances, possibly the state Attorney General’s office.
Our role in any short-term rental shooting case is to map the entire defendant stack — operating company, property owner, host entity, management company, platform, and any affiliated parties — and pursue each one for which there is a viable claim and a meaningful source of recovery.
What “Reasonable Care” Means at a Short-Term Rental Property
The phrase “reasonable care” is the standard; the specific acts that constitute it vary by property and by risk. In the context of a short-term rental in a residential neighborhood like Bath Township, reasonable care typically includes a number of specific things that the defense will not voluntarily admit the owner failed to do. Our investigation will develop the record on each:
Screening the booking. Did the host or platform ask the right questions? Was the booking made in the name of one person, with a list of attendees that grew beyond the rental’s stated capacity? Was payment made in a way that suggested an event rather than an overnight stay? Was the booking made at the last minute with no verifiable prior relationship between the booker and the host? Each of these is a foreseeable signal that a gathering — not a quiet overnight stay — was being planned.
Limiting and enforcing guest count. Short-term rental platforms typically list a maximum occupancy. When a property is rented for a gathering that exceeds the maximum, the failure to enforce that limit is a foreseeable risk. The investigation will seek booking records, guest communication, and any contemporaneous observation of the property from neighbors or from the host’s own on-site visits.
Refusing or canceling bookings with warning signs. Many short-term-rental disputes that turn violent have a paper trail of prior complaints about noise, parking, trash, or disruption. Where that paper trail exists and was not acted on, it is the most powerful evidence in the case. Bath Township is a quiet residential community; a property that has repeatedly disrupted that quiet is a property whose owner has been warned.
Lighting, surveillance, and access control. Reasonable security at a single-family residence rented for a gathering does not require a guard at the door. It does require that the property be visible from the street, that exterior lighting function, that the host be reachable, and that a plan exist for handling disorder when it occurs.
Local contact and rapid response. A short-term rental host in a community like Bath Township should have a local contact who can respond to a complaint within minutes, not hours. The absence of such a contact — or the failure to use one when called — is a recurring theme in short-term-rental shooting and overdose cases.
Compliance with local short-term rental ordinances. Bath Township, like many Ohio townships, has ordinances regulating short-term rentals. Compliance with those ordinances is not a complete defense; the failure to comply is, however, evidence of breach of duty. The investigation will look at whether the host held the required registrations, whether the rental complied with applicable occupancy and parking rules, and whether the platform knew or should have known about the host’s compliance history.
Evidence That Must Be Preserved — and How Fast It Disappears
In a short-term-rental shooting case, the evidence that decides the case lives on several different clocks, and several of those clocks are short. The single most important thing a family can do, after the immediate grief and funeral, is to authorize a lawyer to send preservation letters immediately. We send them the day we are hired.
The evidence that must be preserved, by source, is as follows.
Platform records. Booking records, guest communication, payment records, prior complaints, prior bookings at the same property, host ratings, and platform safety reports. These are held by the platform and the host. Platform records are governed by the platform’s own data-retention policies, which can be as short as ninety days for some categories of operational data and shorter still for some types of communication. The platform’s litigation-hold response varies; some platforms accept a litigation-hold demand and preserve; others require formal subpoena or court order. A preservation letter is sent immediately, and a subpoena follows as soon as the case is filed.
Host records. Personal device records, text messages, social media, prior booking records, communication with prior guests, prior complaints received, and any coordination with the property manager. These are held by the host personally. The temptation to “lose” these records is real; the litigation-hold demand creates a record that supports a spoliation argument if they disappear.
Property owner records. Lease or management agreement with the host, communications with the host, knowledge of prior incidents, knowledge of the property’s condition. These are held by the owner and are typically within the scope of a corporate subpoena.
Surveillance footage from neighbors and the property itself. Ring doorbells, Nest cameras, and other neighborhood cameras are common in Bath Township. Most residential surveillance systems overwrite on a rolling basis, often between 7 and 30 days. The preservation letter must reach the homeowner promptly. The letter identifies the camera system, the address, the time window, and the legal basis for preservation, and it gives the homeowner a clear path to compliance.
Police and incident records. The Summit County Sheriff’s Office and Bath Township Police Department incident reports, dispatch records, body-worn camera footage, 911 recordings, and any crime scene documentation. Public records requests are filed; some records become available immediately and others require the criminal case to advance or a subpoena. We do not wait for the criminal case. Civil discovery tools are used to obtain what is available and to preserve what is not.
Firearm and ballistics evidence. The weapon, the shell casings, the trajectory evidence, the gunshot residue testing. The Summit County Sheriff’s Office or Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation holds these. Defense experts will examine the same evidence; we coordinate with the criminal prosecutor to ensure our experts have appropriate access.
Social media and communications of the attendees. Text messages, Instagram and Snapchat content, and any social-media live videos that may have captured parts of the gathering. The standard preservation letter goes to the major platforms; for individuals, we use a combination of subpoenas and family-authorized requests.
Medical and post-mortem records. The hospital records from the night of the shooting and the autopsy report from the Summit County Coroner. These are obtained through authorizations signed by the personal representative and through the court process where the Coroner resists informal release.
The single biggest mistake families make in these cases is waiting to call a lawyer. By the time the lawyer is hired a month later, a key piece of platform data may already have been overwritten, a neighbor’s camera may have rolled forward, and a text-message thread may have been deleted. We send the preservation letter the day we are hired because that letter is what stands between the family and the disappearance of proof.
Insurance-Adjuster Playbook: Three Plays and Our Counter
When the insurance company for the property owner or the platform first contacts the family, it is rarely a hostile voice. It is usually a soft, sympathetic voice that says the adjuster wants to “make this easier.” That voice has a script. The three most common plays, and our counter to each, follow.
Play one: the quick release. Within days of the funeral, an adjuster will offer a small amount of money in exchange for a full release of all claims. The number is calibrated to feel like help, not to reflect the value of the case. The release extinguishes the family’s right to bring any future claim related to the death. Our counter: the family does not sign anything. The family takes the time to understand the full scope of what they are signing away. The two-year statute of limitations is long enough to evaluate the case properly. A quick settlement, before the evidence is developed, is almost always worth less than a properly investigated case.
Play two: the recorded statement. The adjuster will ask the family member to give a recorded statement “to help us process this.” The recorded statement is built to be quoted against the family later. Specific phrases — “I don’t know what happened,” “I haven’t been able to think about it,” “I just want this to be over” — are mined for admissions of lack of knowledge, contradictions with later testimony, or evidence of cognitive impairment from grief that can be used to impeach the family at trial. Our counter: the family does not give a recorded statement without counsel. The family member does not even confirm basic facts over the phone until counsel is on the line. If the adjuster is genuine, the call can happen with counsel present and on recorded notice. If the adjuster refuses, that is the strongest possible evidence that the call is a setup.
Play three: the medical authorization dump. The adjuster will ask for broad medical and mental-health authorizations to be signed “so we can understand the impact.” The authorizations are used to mine the family’s medical history for anything that can be used to reduce the value of the case. Our counter: the family does not sign medical authorizations without counsel reviewing the scope. The first authorization an adjuster hands you is always broader than necessary. We will work with the adjuster to provide exactly what is needed, no more.
The pattern across all three plays is the same. The adjuster is not trying to help the family; the adjuster is trying to lock in the family at the lowest possible number before the family has had the chance to build the case. We work for the family, and the first job is to make sure none of those three plays succeeds.
What Your Case Is Worth: An Honest Valuation
We are asked this question early, and we answer it honestly, with a range rather than a single number, because the actual value of any wrongful death case depends on facts that are still being developed.
The case valuation range for a teenager’s wrongful death in Ohio, in a negligent security case of this kind, is typically between $1.5 million and $5 million or more at the top of the range, depending on the strength of the foreseeability evidence, the depth of the available insurance coverage, the age and life expectancy of the deceased, and the conduct of the defendants.
The components of that value, in Ohio, are the following.
Economic loss. Funeral and burial expenses, typically $10,000 to $30,000. The lost financial support your son would have provided over a normal working life. For a teenager, the projected working life is 45 to 50 years. Even at modest projected earnings, the present value of that loss is substantial, and the work-life and life-expectancy assumptions matter — a forensic economist will build the calculation with worklife tables and earnings data. The loss of household services your son would have provided. The loss of the value of his future earning capacity, which for a young person is the largest single component of economic damages.
Non-economic loss. The loss of society and companionship your family will never have from him. Under Ohio law, the parents of a deceased minor child have a recognized claim for the loss of his society and companionship, separate from the grief damages available to the estate. The grief, mental anguish, and loss of comfort of the parents and siblings is a recognized component of Ohio wrongful death damages. The decedent’s own pre-death pain and suffering, if any, where the medical record supports it.
Punitive damages. Where the evidence supports a finding that the property owner, host, or platform acted with conscious disregard of a substantial and unjustifiable risk, Ohio law permits punitive damages. Negligent security cases often support a punitive claim because the conduct alleged — ignoring prior complaints, booking a clearly unsuitable gathering, failing to have any local contact — is the kind of conduct that juries will punish when the full story is told.
Insurance availability. The recovery is bounded, in practice, by the available insurance. The property owner’s homeowner’s or landlord policy may have an exclusion for business activity; a short-term-rental endorsement or a separate commercial policy may exist. The platform’s liability coverage is a separate source. The pool of available insurance is a specific factual investigation that we run in parallel with the liability investigation.
The honest framing. A teenage wrongful death case is not a verdict-mill case. The defense will pay to fight it. The realistic recovery depends on the evidence, the jury, the available insurance, and the work that goes into building the case over the 12 to 30 months that a case like this typically takes to resolve. The number above is a range, not a guarantee. We will give you a more specific valuation once the preservation letters have been honored and the basic evidentiary picture is in focus. We will never promise a number we cannot stand behind. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
The Criminal Case Is Not a Substitute for the Civil Case
Some families, after the funeral, receive a call from a Summit County prosecutor or a state investigator explaining the criminal case against the shooter. They are told, sometimes implicitly and sometimes explicitly, that the criminal case is the “real” case and that civil recovery is secondary or inappropriate. That framing is wrong, and the family should know it.
The criminal case is brought by the State of Ohio. Its purpose is to punish the shooter, protect the public, and vindicate the community’s interest in the rule of law. The civil case is brought by the family. Its purpose is to hold the property owner, host, and platform accountable for the conditions that made the shooting possible, and to recover the full economic and human cost of your son’s death. The two cases do not overlap in their defendants, in their remedies, in their procedures, or in their goals. The criminal case does not produce a verdict for funeral expenses, lost future earnings, or the loss of a parent’s child. The civil case does.
A defendant can be found not guilty in the criminal case and still be civilly liable in the wrongful death case, because the burdens of proof are different and the relevant conduct is different. The family should not let the existence of a criminal prosecution become a reason to defer the civil case. In fact, the criminal case often produces discovery that is useful in the civil case — law-enforcement interviews, forensic reports, and witness statements that the family cannot otherwise obtain.
The First 72 Hours: A Practical Roadmap
In the first seventy-two hours after a family calls us, we move on several tracks at once. The first is the preservation letter. The second is the appointment of a personal representative for the wrongful death action if one has not yet been appointed. The third is the engagement of a forensic economist and a security expert. The fourth is the public records work.
Within 24 hours. Preservation letters go out to the platform, the property owner, the host entity, and identified surveillance owners in the area. We do not wait for the criminal case to develop.
Within the first week. A petition is filed in the Summit County Probate Court for the appointment of a personal representative if needed. The complaint is drafted in anticipation of filing within the statute of limitations. A motion for the appointment of a special administrator may be filed if the criminal case has not yet named a defendant to serve.
Within the first month. A formal public-records request is filed with the Bath Township Police Department and the Summit County Sheriff’s Office for incident reports, dispatch records, and 911 audio. A subpoena is served on the platform for the booking records and prior complaint history. A forensic economist is retained to begin building the life-care and lost-earnings model.
Within the first 90 days. Discovery has begun. The defense is on the clock. The family has a clear picture of the case’s value range, the available insurance, and the strategic choices ahead. By this point, the preservation window for most of the most fragile evidence has closed, and the family’s case is built on a record that did not exist three months earlier.
We work the case at the pace the case requires, and we walk the family through every decision. We do not make decisions for the family; we make sure every decision is an informed one.
How We Charge: Contingency, Plainly
We work these cases on a contingency fee. The standard terms in our firm are 33.33% of the recovery if the case resolves before a lawsuit is filed, and a higher percentage if the case requires trial. The exact percentage is set out in a written engagement letter that the family reviews and signs before any work begins. We advance the costs of the case — filing fees, expert fees, deposition costs, trial exhibits, mediator fees — and we are repaid those costs out of the recovery. If there is no recovery, the family owes us nothing for fees or costs.
Free consultation. The first conversation is free, and it is confidential. It is not a sales call. It is a working conversation with a senior attorney about what the case involves, what the realistic timeline looks like, and what the first concrete steps are. We do not pressure a grieving family to retain us. We make ourselves available because the work has to start somewhere, and the preservation clock does not wait.
No fee unless we win. If there is no recovery, the family does not owe us an attorney fee. Costs advanced by the firm that are not recouped from a recovery are absorbed by the firm. The family takes no financial risk in retaining us; the firm takes the risk, and the firm earns its fee only by producing a result.
Our Trial Team
When a family calls Attorney911, the case is handled by a working trial team, not handed to a call center.
Ralph P. Manginello is the Managing Partner. He has spent more than 27 years in courtrooms, including federal court, and has been admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He is a graduate of South Texas College of Law Houston and the University of Texas at Austin. Before law school, Ralph worked as a journalist — a background that shows up in how he investigates a case and how he tells a jury what the evidence actually says. He has been the lead trial counsel in catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases across more than two decades, including matters involving commercial vehicles, premises liability, and product liability. He serves on the firm’s most serious cases personally, including the negotiation and trial of a $10 million-plus active hazing/excessive-force lawsuit currently in Harris County.
Lupe Peña is the firm’s associate attorney and a former insurance defense attorney — an important fact in a negligent security case. Lupe spent the early part of his career on the other side of the table, working inside a national insurance defense firm, learning how claims adjusters and defense counsel set reserves, schedule independent medical examinations, select friendly doctors, and deploy surveillance. He now uses that insider knowledge for injured people rather than against them. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter, which matters in a community like Akron’s, where Spanish-speaking families deserve the same access to the legal system as everyone else. He was licensed in December 2012 and has been in trial practice for more than 13 years.
The firm practices across Texas, with offices in Houston, Austin, and Beaumont, and accepts cases nationwide through local counsel and pro hac vice admission. We appear as lead counsel, local counsel, or co-counsel depending on the case, and we have done that in venues around the country.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long do I have to file a wrongful death lawsuit in Ohio after my son was shot at a short-term rental?
Two years from the date of death under Ohio Revised Code § 2305.10(A). The deadline is not a soft target; it is jurisdictional. A case filed one day late is over. We file the complaint well within the two-year window to give the case room to develop on the merits without risking the statute.
Can we sue Airbnb or the short-term rental platform for our son’s death?
The platform is a named defendant in this case. Platforms generally argue they are a marketplace, not a host, and that they are shielded from liability for the conduct of users. Ohio and federal case law on that question is evolving and is highly fact-specific. Whether the platform can be held directly liable here depends on what the platform did or failed to do — what safety representations it made, what it knew about the host and the property, what complaints had been filed, whether it ignored red flags in the booking. That is one of the central questions the lawsuit will answer.
Can we sue the property owner and the host even if the shooter is being criminally prosecuted?
Yes. The criminal case is brought by the State of Ohio against the shooter. The civil case is brought by your family against the property owner, the host, the management company, the platform, and any other entities whose conduct contributed to the conditions that made the shooting possible. The two cases proceed on parallel tracks, with different defendants, different remedies, and different burdens of proof. The existence of the criminal case is not a reason to delay the civil case; in many ways the criminal investigation produces information the civil case can use.
What damages can our family recover in an Ohio wrongful death case?
Under Ohio Revised Code § 2125.02, recoverable damages include loss of financial support, loss of household services, loss of society and companionship (including, for a deceased minor child, the parents’ claim for loss of his society), loss of prospective inheritance, funeral and burial expenses, mental anguish, and the decedent’s pre-death pain and suffering. Where the evidence supports conscious disregard of a known risk, punitive damages are also available. A forensic economist will work with the family to develop the economic-loss component.
How do we prove the property owner knew or should have known that violence was foreseeable?
We prove foreseeability through the specific record: prior police calls to the property, prior complaints to the host or platform, prior bookings of large gatherings, prior reports of noise or disruption from neighbors, the booking pattern that led to this particular gathering, the property’s compliance or non-compliance with local short-term-rental ordinances, and the host’s prior responses to warning signs. Bath Township is a quiet residential community; the absence of violence in the surrounding area makes a known, recurring pattern at this particular property a louder warning than it would be elsewhere. The property owner with that information has the duty to act on it.
What if my son was found to share some fault for being at the gathering?
Ohio follows a modified comparative negligence rule under Ohio Revised Code § 2315.33. A plaintiff (or, in a wrongful death case, a decedent) found to be 50% or less at fault can still recover, with the recovery reduced in proportion to that share. A plaintiff found to be more than 50% at fault recovers nothing. The defense bears the burden of proof on comparative fault. In a short-term-rental shooting case, the comparative-fault fight usually targets the organizer of the gathering and the shooter, not the deceased guest who was shot.
Do we have to pay anything up front to hire Attorney911 for this case?
No. We work on contingency. Our fee is a percentage of the recovery, set out in a written engagement letter, and we advance the costs of the case. If there is no recovery, the family owes us nothing. The first conversation is a free consultation, and it is confidential. We do not charge for the preservation work we do in the first week, and we do not charge the family to send the letters that protect the evidence.
How long will a wrongful death case like this take to resolve?
It depends on the case. A short-term-rental negligent security case in Ohio typically takes 12 to 30 months from filing to resolution. The case does not move at the family’s pace or the defense’s pace; it moves at the pace the evidence requires and the court’s docket allows. We update the family on a regular schedule and on every material development, and we do not let the case sit. Cases that are not moving are cases that are losing value; we move them.
What should I do in the first days after my son’s death to protect the case?
Call us. The first call is free, and it triggers the preservation work. Do not give a recorded statement to any insurance adjuster or platform representative. Do not sign a release. Do not delete anything from your own phone, your own social media, or your own email. Save your son’s phone and any of his devices that you have access to; do not unlock them without counsel. Begin collecting the documents you have — the booking confirmation, the text messages, anything that connects your son to the property on the night in question. Preserve, do not delete, and let us take it from there.
Will the case go to trial?
Many of these cases resolve before trial, but the work is done from day one as if trial is the destination. The defense takes a case more seriously when it is prepared for trial, and the settlement value follows the trial preparation. We do not promise a trial result; we do promise that the case will be ready for trial if that is what achieving the right outcome requires. We will walk you through the choice at every stage.
What happens if the property owner or the host files for bankruptcy during the case?
Bankruptcy does not necessarily end the case. A bankruptcy filing stays the civil case automatically; the family files a proof of claim in the bankruptcy court and pursues the case as a creditor. Many of the most important sources of recovery in a negligent security case are insurance policies that are not part of the bankruptcy estate. We assess the bankruptcy implications early and build the case to survive them.
Will I have to testify in court?
Possibly. You may give a deposition — a sworn statement taken under oath in the defense attorney’s office — and you may testify at trial if the case goes that far. We prepare you for both, in detail, in advance. A grieving parent’s testimony is the most powerful evidence in a wrongful death case, and we will make sure you are ready to give it with confidence and without being ambushed by an insurance defense attorney trying to make you feel like you are on trial.
Hablamos Español
Lupe Peña is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. Spanish-speaking families in Akron and across Ohio have the same right to understand every document, every legal option, and every court proceeding as anyone else. We will work with the family in the language the family is most comfortable with.
What Happens Next
You do not have to make every decision today. You do have to make one decision this week: who is going to preserve the evidence before it disappears. That decision can be made in a single phone call.
We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 1-888-ATTY-911 (1-888-288-9911). The first conversation is free. It is confidential. It is with a senior attorney, not a screener. We will not pressure you to retain us, and we will not make promises we cannot keep. We will tell you what the case involves, what the realistic timeline looks like, and what the first concrete steps are. We will then wait for you to be ready, and we will be ready when you are.
If your family is considering a wrongful death claim following the loss of a child at a short-term rental, you can also reach out through our contact page to schedule the free consultation. The work that follows the consultation is the same work, with the same focus, whether the family is in Akron, in Bath Township, anywhere in Summit County, or anywhere in Ohio.
Attorney Ralph Manginello leads the firm’s catastrophic injury and wrongful death practice and will personally oversee the case. Attorney Lupe Peña leads the day-to-day work and brings the insider knowledge of how insurance defense counsel price, value, and try to discount these cases. The firm’s full practice areas include the wrongful death, premises liability, and negligent security work that this case requires.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. The legal information on this page is general and is not a substitute for legal advice about your specific case. The attorney-client relationship is created only by a written engagement letter signed by both the firm and the family.
No fee unless we win. Free consultation. 1-888-ATTY-911. Hablamos Español.