City Reaches $14.5M Fatal-Fire Settlement

A lawsuit stemming from a fatal fire at an illegal Hill rooming house won’t go to trial after all — now that the Elicker administration has agreed to a $14.5 million settlement with the estates of the two men who died during that blaze.

The city will have to pay $1 million of the cost of the settlement, with the rest of the balance covered by the city’s insurance.

The settlement is preliminary. To become final, it will need to be presented to and approved by the city’s Litigation Settlement Committee at a date to be determined. Probate Court then needs to sign off on the settlement.

Clarice Elarabi had sued the city in 2021 after a fire took the lives of her twin brother, Michael Randall, and fellow 150 West St. tenant Corey Reed on May 5, 2019.

She and her lawyer, Craig Smith of Koskoff, Koskoff, & Bieder, argued that the city was negligent in preventing the fire.

Jury selection had already wrapped up earlier this month. Opening arguments and the presentation of evidence were set to begin on June 5 at the state courthouse at 235 Church St.

Then, on Wednesday, the state court’s online database indicated that the start of the trial had been postponed and a withdrawal of the lawsuit is now due on Aug. 27.

City spokesperson Lenny Speiller confirmed that this is because the city has reached a settlement with the plaintiffs.

He said that the total settlement for the wrongful death cases in state court is for $14.5 million. The city is responsible for $1 million as its deductible, he said.

Speiller said the settlement amount will be distributed evenly between the estates of the two men who died. The two lawsuits covered by this settlement can be found here and here.

He pointed out that this is a ​“preliminary settlement agreement.” It now has to be approved by the city’s Litigation Settlement Committee and by Probate Court.

Speiller also noted that eight other individuals who were injured during the 150 West fire have reached a $100,000 preliminary settlement agreement with the property’s then owner, John Farrar, to settle a separate state lawsuit.

“While this fire predates my time as mayor, it’s important that the city reached an amicable settlement with all impacted families and parties that were involved in this horrific incident,” Elicker is quoted as saying in a statement provided to the Independent.

“While no amount of money can ever compensate for the loss of life, we trust this settlement will help the Randall and Reed families move forward with the support they need to ensure their well-being,” he continued.

Elicker said that, since the 150 West fire, the city has established new processes and procedures to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. ​“This includes a uniform complaint form that is shared with all relevant departments, establishing a joint task force between relevant departments (Fire Department, Livable City Initiative, and Building Department), and ensuring that a city official stays on the scene of a residence when there is an imminent life and safety hazard until that issue is resolved.”

Craig Smith, the attorney representing Randall’s and Reed’s estates in their lawsuits against the city, declined to comment on the dollar amount of the settlement. He told the Independent that the families of the victims are ​“satisfied with the resolution. It took many years of litigation to finally reach a favorable agreement that will hold the city fully responsible.”

In a followup comment provided on Friday, he described the 150 West fire as a ​“preventable tragedy,” and Randall and Reed as ​“heroes” who lost their lives trying to save others ​“trapped in a home that the Fire Marshall failed to inspect despite its known dangers. After five long years of no accountability from the City of New Haven, I’m pleased that their families have finally received the justice they deserve. ”

Complaints and inspections that the Independent obtained months after the fire indicate that the city — then under the leadership of Mayor Toni Harp — knew about the illegal rooming house and code violations, such as an insufficient number of working smoke detectors. A housing inspector and a fire marshal had documented these conditions in an inspection on Feb. 11, 2019.

In legal filings in the runup to the now-averted trial, the city argued that the house’s landlord at the time of the fire should have been held exclusively responsible for damages. The city wrote in a cross complaint implicating Farrar that the city ​“did not know of John Farrar’s negligence, had no reason to anticipate such negligence, and reasonably relied upon John Farrar not to be negligent as stated.”

The three-story house at 150 West was supposed to have two apartments, according to city records. In reality, Farrar and previous landlord Dorjan Dashari were renting individual rooms to 16 tenants.

The house had only one exit and, according to tenants, an insufficient number of working smoke alarms — which left two tenants trapped in the May 5, 2019 fire, while others leapt out of windows in order to survive.

Randall, a passionate chef and devoted churchgoer, had spent the last minutes of his life knocking on his neighbors’ doors in order to alert them to the fire in the absence of a smoke alarm, according to witnesses.

The house’s owners had also failed to secure a mandatory landlord license, which would have prompted the Livable City Initiative (LCI) to conduct regular inspections of the property.

Previous coverage of the 150 West St. fire:

• 2 Die In Hill Fire; Tenants Leap For Lives; Questions Raised On Smoke Alarms, Exits
• Tenants Who Escaped Deadly Fire: Smoke Alarm Didn’t Sound. Slumlord Didn’t Care
• Files Reveal Slumlord-Chasing Challenges
• Police Report: 150 West St. Landlord Assaulted Tenant Who Later Died In Fire
• Slumlord Unloads 2 More Hill Properties
• Tenants Return, Retrieve Burnt Belongings
• City Alerted To Perils Before Fatal Fire
• Fatal Fire Lawsuit Heads To Trial
• Journalist Judged As Potential Juror