NEWS BRIEF: CVS to pay $43 million in customer shooting verdict

A $43 million premises liability verdict against the CVS Pharmacy chain has been upheld by an appeals court after it ruled the company could have prevented the 2012 shooting of a customer if adequate security measures had been taken. The victim, James Carmichael, was shot repeatedly in a robbery attempt by an assailant outside the store on Moreland Avenue, and spent a month in a coma afterwards. He underwent multiple surgeries and still suffers nerve damage, hearing loss, speech problems and chronic pain, the court was told. Security guards who had been in place two years before the shooting were terminated by CVS, after which three violent crimes occurred at the Moreland location, witnesses testified. Presiding Judge Yvette Miller concluded that Carmichael’s assault was reasonably foreseeable to CVS “because previous crimes were substantially similar and there was evidence that another robbery was a salient possibility.” insurancejournal.com