NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Attorneys were met with a new, recently agreed upon deadline of Monday, April 8 for the next chapter in the legal fight over the condemned Seaview Lofts apartment complex in Newport News.
On June 29, 2022, code compliance officers condemned the property after finding problems with a malfunctioning elevator, a broken boiler system and more emergency code violations.
In January, 13News Now reported more than 80 former residents and their representing attorneys had newly filed an amended lawsuit seeking financial compensation and relief for the abrupt building condemnation.
According to John Maravalli, one of the attorneys representing the tenants in the case for Consumer Litigation Associates, both sides had come to an agreed-upon deadline of April 8 to exchange relevant building, code and tenant files with each other.
“They ask for some things, we ask for some things, we put a deadline of that and we exchanged them," Maravalli said.
This self-imposed deadline, which Maravalli categorized as "informal discovery", comes two months after the most recently amended lawsuit was re-filed for the case, coming more than a year and a half after the original tenants' lawsuit by CLA. The original filing included 58 plaintiffs.
Maravalli shared that the out-of-pocket expenses associated with the sudden condemnation are "just under" $1 million.
“That accounts for hotel costs for waiting for the building to reopen, displace costs, moving storage, having to eat out every day living in a hotel not having access to a kitchen. And on top of that, people’s belongings. They lost access for anywhere from 30 days to never getting access again, and some people lost everything they own," Maravalli said.
However, between compensatory damages, treble damages, rent abatement, punitive damages as well as attorneys' fees and costs, the amended lawsuit seeks $50 million in damages for the collective group of plaintiffs, according to the most recent complaint. Part of which, Maravalli adds, includes recouping financial losses from "pain and suffering" estimated at $115,000 per tenant and up to $10 million across the 87 tenants so far on the case.
"Pain and suffering and emotional distress come from dealing with that, being displaced from your house within 24-48 hours," he adds.
“Paid a deposit, I was in my second month where I had everything comfortably and it was a spiral from there because I had to buy all the tools I use and I still don’t have everything I need," said Justin Campbell, a former resident who was forced to move out after the building's second condemnation following a fire in August 2023.
The original lawsuit, filed in August 2022 and weeks after the initial condemnation, was filed into Newport News court, citing building owner Ben Weinstein had violated the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act as well as the Virginia Consumer Protection Act.
It read:
For the ten months that Seaview Apartments was condemned, the Seaview Tenants were deprived of housing and unable to access personal belongings beyond what they carried with them following the condemnation. The repercussions of Defendants’ misconduct were severe: tenants experienced homelessness, living on the streets or in their vehicles, other tenants, slightly more “fortunate,” shouldered the expense of high-cost hotel stays, and a “lucky” few were able to reside with relatives.
Another element at play in the recently amended lawsuit is the status of paying back outstanding deposits, which Maravalli says the "initiation" of which is a part of the same informal discovery process.
Even though class action lawsuits are not allowed in Virginia, Consumer Litigation Associates can add tenants to the amended complaint because each of the plaintiff cases is being looked at individually.
The amended filing incorporates more explicit details, seen below: