All lawsuits now settled in stabbing at Target
East Liberty store site of 2013 attack
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Target Corp. on Thursday settled all of the lawsuits involved in a trial that began this week over the stabbing of a girl by a deranged man, and then her rescue by four strangers, in the company’s East Liberty store in 2013.
The civil trial involving allegations and cross-allegations about who was to blame in the March 25, 2013, attack on Allison Meadows, now 19, began Wednesday with attorneys for the family, Target and two of four men countersued by Target giving opening statements.
The trial was to resume Thursday, but attorneys told the judge settlements had been reached with Ms. Meadows and the two men Target had sued. Also, Target dropped its countersuits against two other men, including the attacker.
Target would only say in an emailed statement: “The parties have reached a mutually agreeable, confidential settlement in this matter. We extend our sympathies to Ms. Meadows and wish her well.”
Target reached settlements with two of Ms. Meadows’ rescuers, Jobea Wright and Roland Smith, whom Target had alleged were responsible for the incident because they pursued the attacker, Leon Walls, 44, into the store after he had stabbed Mr. Wright outside the store.
Fred Rabner, Mr. Wright’s attorney, said: “All the parties seem to be happy with [the settlement]. All matters are resolved.”
He said the settlement terms would remain confidential by agreement of the parties.
Bill Goodrich, Mr. Smith’s attorney, said he believed the strong opening arguments that he and and the Meadows’ family attorney made Wednesday contributed in getting all of the sides together.
“I think the parties involved realized it was in the best interest of all that this be resolved,” he said.
An attorney for Ms. Meadows said in opening statements to the jury Wednesday that the rescuers were not to blame for the attack and that Target was to blame because a store manager just 10 months before the attack had asked for funding for full-time, armed, police security after a series of assaults and other crimes at the store.
But a manager in Target’s Minneapolis headquarters turned down the request for 105 hours a week of full-time coverage and agreed to fund only 40 hours a week. The East Liberty Target store decided to provide armed security from 4 to 11 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
Ms. Meadows was attacked on a Monday, when an untrained, unarmed asset protection employee was on duty.
Ms. Meadows, of Chattanooga, Tenn., was in Pittsburgh visiting her nephew, a transplant patient who was being treated at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, when she was stabbed.