Wal-Mart has failed to convince a judge to throw out a lawsuit by a Mabelvale man who had been left for dead by robbers in a burning car on a Little Rock store’s parking lot.
Pulaski County CircuitJudge Alice Gray ruled that Randy Dewayne Hudson’s lawsuit against the retailer can proceed.
Hudson had been at the store at 8801 Base Line Road for a middle-of-the-night shopping trip in November 2007 when he was abducted by a robber who got intoHudson’s pickup and put a gun to his head. The gunman told Hudson to go to an ATM. But when Hudson told the man he didn’t have an ATM card, the robber said he would kill Hudson and shot him in the neck.
The robber jumped out of the vehicle. But the woundparalyzed Hudson, leaving him trapped in the moving vehicle, which crashed through a fence on the Wal-Mart parking lot and caught fire. Firefighters discovered Hudson trapped in the vehicle. The robber escaped in an accomplice’s car.
Hudson’s attorney, LauraLensing Calhoun with Little Rock’s Worsham Law Firm, said the gunshot left Hudson a quadriplegic who regularly suffers seizures and requires 24-hour care. He suffered disfiguring third-degree burns over 20 percent of his body, which have left him in constant pain, she said.
He sued Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and their security company about a year later, claiming negligence. He is seeking compensatory damages for his ongoing medical expenses, loss of income, suffering and mental anguish.
Wal-Mart argued that itcouldn’t be held responsible for the attack.
On Thursday, Gray rejected that argument, ruling Hudson’s claims against Wal-Mart could go to trial, which is scheduled for February.
Gray ruled that while Hudson had no evidence that Wal-Mart could have known in advance what was going to happen to him, he can argue to a jury that the retailer should have known customers in the parking lot could be targeted by armed robbers.
But the judge rejected Hudson’s claims against the Wal-Mart security company, U.S. Security Associates Inc. of Georgia. Dismissing the allegations against U.S.
Security, Gray sided with the company that provided the security guards the night Hudson was shot. The firm had argued that since it was employed by Wal-Mart, the guards had no duty to protect Hudson.
In his suit, Hudson, who turns 35 today, said he saw the two robbers apparently talking with one of the security guards, as though the guard knew the men.
No one has ever been charged for the attack. Police named a suspect, Rahsaan Aki Taylor, 30, of Little Rock, a few days later. Taylor would go on to be convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison for killing a man in the Baseline area around the time Hudson was shot, but he has never been charged with the attack on Hudson.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 8 on 06/23/2012