Jury awards more than $60 million after security guard smashes glass over man’s head at Texas Live!

Abel Rodriguez, a veteran and former police officer, suffered severe brain damage after a security guard Texas Live! the bar assaulted him, according to a lawsuit.

Rodriguez, who has PTSD, was encouraged to socialize by his counselor. On Sept. 9, 2018, the 54-year-old went out to the Arlington entertainment complex for a night that caused him to suffer for many years, his wife and lawyers said.

Abel and his wife, Cynthia Rodriguez, were awarded more than $60 million in damages by a Tarrant County jury on Tuesday, November 26. The trial verdict came after a six-year wait for the couple.

The total judgment amount of $60,650,000 includes exemplary damages of $50 million against Texas Live!, $5 million against Parish Internal Security Corporation and $500,000 against the security guard, Hasan Perryman, according to court documents.

A Texas Live! rep said in a statement that “Texas Live! is committed to providing a safe environment for its millions of visitors each year. The isolated incident occurred in 2018 between an individual and a representative of a third-party security company and is being appealed.”

The night of the incident

Abel, Cynthia and their two friends met at Texas Live!, at 1650 E. Randol Mill Road in Arlington. After dinner they went to PBR bar located inside the Texas Live! complex.

PBR patrons can purchase souvenir beer mugs, but must leave their glass mugs outside the bar on a table. As the group of friends were leaving, they noticed a large stack of glasses at a table and asked the bouncer, Perryman, “What do you do with these glasses at the end of the day?” Perryman said he takes them home and gives them to friends and family, according to the lawsuit.

After what they recall as a friendly conversation, Abel took one of the glasses and left the bar to get pizza from the food court, the couple’s lead attorney, Brian Butcher, said in an interview with the Star-Telegram.

They were ordering pizza when the security guard came and took the glass off the table, he said.

When Abel approached the guard, Perryman turned and violently pushed him to the ground, Butcher said. Perryman then picked up the heavy glass mug he had just taken from the table and when Abel dropped his head, Perryman broke the glass at the back of his head at the base of his skull, the attorney said. Layers of stitches were needed to sew up the wound.

Medical personnel accidentally left several large pieces of glass in Abel’s head between his scalp and skull, which he had in his head for a year until they had to be surgically removed, Butcher said.

The impact of the bottle hitting his head caused a brain injury, and Abel suffered a concussion and cognitive deficits that continue to this day, Butcher said.

Cynthia witnessed the brutal attack, she told the Star-Telegram. “It all happened so fast,” she said.

“We were just shocked – we never expected something like this to happen,” Cynthia said.

She said people gathered around and some said they might be a witness, but there was so much commotion that she didn’t collect their information, assuming the facility would have video surveillance.

Perryman also hit her husband in the eye, Cynthia said.

A full year later, Abel kept saying he had a headache and felt something in the back of his head, she said. That’s when they decided to contact a lawyer.

“It was very stressful because no one seemed to take responsibility for it happening — the security company or Texas Live!” Cynthia said. “No one from the companies has contacted us to apologise, and I think that was the most upsetting.”

“He lived and thought well, maybe it was my fault, but it wasn’t. He knew he didn’t throw a punch, he knew he didn’t do anything wrong,” she said.

Butcher and other lawyers from Noteboom Law Firm represented Cynthia and Abel.

“I’m so thankful we chose their firm because he was like a god send to us,” said Cynthia.

Cynthia hopes that with the verdict and everything they’ve been through, Texas Live! would consider better supervision of his guards.

“My husband still has headaches from headaches, which could be from nerve damage, because there were two layers of stitches in his head, in his skull, and it probably went down so deep that he could have damage of nerves for the rest. of his life,” she said.

Cynthia said she wants to be proactive and help her husband move on.

“These days people are not treated with kindness and grace and people need to be treated better and I just hope they change the way they do things so that this doesn’t happen to another person,” she said. .

“So many people visit that place, someone could have been killed, and it could have been my husband,” Cynthia said.

Companies negligent in hiring guard, lawyer says

Texas Live! and Inner Parish were not only negligent in allowing Perryman to be employed as a security guard there, but also engaged in a cover-up of what he did, Butcher said.

There is clear evidence that there was video surveillance of what happened, and the companies withheld that evidence from the jury, according to Butcher.

“Texas Live! and the security company they hired actually used my client’s PTSD against him and chose to argue that all of his issues were issues related to his war experiences, PTSD, and not a traumatic brain injury” , Butcher said.

Perryman was convicted in Chicago of punching a maid in the face for giving her a parking ticket, Butcher said. He was hired without being properly vetted and the companies did not have a claim on his employment record, the lawyer said.

“Texas law states that a person with a felony conviction within the last 10 years is not allowed to work as a security guard,” Butcher said. “Perryman was hired despite what he had, five years ago.”

No criminal charges have been filed against Perryman in connection with the attack on Abel, according to his attorneys.

The attack represented a serious setback in Abel’s life. He was isolated and his depression and anxiety got worse, and all the PTSD symptoms he had before got worse, Butcher said.

“We overcame their refusal to take responsibility by explaining the facts of the case to the jury and letting the jury decide the truth,” Butcher said. “The case was a vindication of the truth, a vindication of Abel Rodriguez.”

He also sees the verdict as a repudiation of the defense’s tactics in the case and that it dragged Abel Rodriguez’s name through the dirt for years, he said.

“They’re not just customers, they’re my friends, and they’re deeply good people who have suffered something horrible that should never have happened,” Butcher said. “I’m happy for them that they were able to tell their story to 12 neutral people in the community and that all 12 people who listened to their story believed and supported them.”