Inset: James Holloway Sr. (Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office). Background: Marcis Pointe Apartments in Jacksonville, Florida, where Holloway drowned in a nearby retention pond (Google Maps).
An 85-year-old Florida man living with dementia drowned after leaving his apartment at a Jacksonville senior living community and ending up in an unfenced retention pond that had fallen into “dangerous disrepair,” according to a newly filed lawsuit.
James Holloway Sr. was reported missing on March 21 from his apartment at Marcis Pointe in Jacksonville. Authorities said at the time that Holloway had dementia and was able to walk slowly. Deputies later discovered his body in a retention pond near the apartment complex.
Holloway’s family has now brought a wrongful death lawsuit against the senior living community’s owners, Wendover Management LLC and NVC-103rd Street, LTD, accusing them of negligence in the upkeep and safety of the area surrounding the pond.
“Due to that retention pond not being maintained in compliance with mandatory maintenance strictures, including those pertaining to the slope of the land heading towards and into the water, James O. Holloway Sr. should never have been able to gain access to the pond, as the pond should have been fenced or otherwise restricted from public access,” the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Duval County, states.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs, from The Haggard Law Firm and Edwards Law, contend the pond’s slope was excessively steep — a hazard they say was especially serious given its location beside an apartment complex serving elderly residents.
Holloway’s daughter Latonya Stewart and her lawyers held a press conference regarding the suit.
“The chain of events continues to be the same and continues to be predictable,” attorney Adam Finkle said. “An apartment complex with a retention pond absolutely ignores their legal duties for how to maintain that man-made body of water, that retention pond falls into dangerous disrepair, and an absolutely foreseeable and preventable death happens.”
Stewart told reporters that her father “did not deserve to die the way he did, at the bottom of a pond,” and urged the management company to fix the alleged safety issue.
“Anybody can walk out and slip in one of those ponds,” Stewart said. “I’m sure it’s not the first and I hope it’s the last.”
The management companies have not commented on the lawsuit.
The post 85-year-old man with dementia dies after slipping into retention pond that was in ‘dangerous disrepair:’ Lawsuit first appeared on Law & Crime.
