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 with dementia drowned after walking out of his apartment at a senior living community and slipping into an unfenced retention pond that was in "dangerous disrepair," a lawsuit alleges.
James Holloway Sr. was reported missing on March 21 from his apartment on Marcis Pointe in Jacksonville. Holloway had dementia and could slowly walk, cops said at the time. Deputies found his body in a retention pond near the complex.
Now his family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the owners of the senior living community — Wendover Management LLC and NVC-103rd Street, LTD — alleging they were negligent in maintaining the area around 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.
Plaintiff lawyers from The Haggard Law Firm and Edwards Law argued that the slope of the pond was too steep, especially considering it was near an apartment complex for the elderly.
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 her dad "did not deserve to die the way he did, at the bottom of a pond" and pleaded with the management company to address the problem.
"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.