Premises Liability
Verified Update
Filed
Sanders v. Simon Property Group, L.P. (The Galleria Houston Parking-Garage Shooting Negligent-Security Suit)
The family of Anthony Sanders, a 30-year-old Marine Corps veteran shot and killed in a parking garage at Houston's Galleria mall on June 3, 2025, filed a negligent-security suit in Harris County District Court against Simon Property Group, HG Galleria LLC, and security contractors Allied Universal Security Services and GardaWorld Security Services, along with the individuals accused of the shooting. The complaint's central allegation is that the two suspects had previously been banned from the mall -- and were captured on video being removed by security more than once, including the day before the fatal shooting -- yet the property had no system in place to actually keep banned individuals out.
More than $1,000,000 sought
Why it matters: Shifts the negligent-security foreseeability inquiry away from a property's general crime history and onto something more concrete and harder for a defendant to dismiss at the pleading stage: whether a mall enforced its own previously-issued bans against the specific individuals who went on to commit the violence. Any commercial property that maintains a formal trespass/ban list -- malls, casinos, large retail centers -- should treat the case as a reason to audit whether its ban-enforcement process (facial recognition, security briefings, access-control flags) actually functions in practice, not just on paper.
Sep 3, 2026
Harris County District Court, Texas
Zoning & Land Use
Verified Update
Ruling Issued
The Retail Property Trust v. Nassau County Dept. of Assessment (Roosevelt Field $4.8M Reporting-Fine Appeal)
The Second Circuit affirmed a $4.8 million fine Nassau County imposed on The Retail Property Trust, the Simon Property Group-affiliated owner of Roosevelt Field Mall, for failing to file two consecutive years of mandatory financial disclosures under the County's Annual Statement of Income and Expense (ASIE) Law. The panel held the value-linked penalty was not grossly disproportional under the Eighth Amendment's Excessive Fines Clause given the property's value and the owner's willful, repeated noncompliance, affirming summary judgment for the County out of the Eastern District of New York.
$4.8M cumulative fine for two years of non-compliance
Why it matters: Confirms that municipalities can tie escalating disclosure penalties directly to a commercial property's assessed value and have those penalties survive constitutional scrutiny, even at multimillion-dollar levels, so long as noncompliance is willful and repeated. A separate opinion questioning whether corporations can invoke the Excessive Fines Clause at all signals an unresolved issue that could shape how commercial owners contest other value-linked regulatory fines going forward.
Aug 6, 2026
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
REIT & Securities
Verified Update
Filed
Herb Simon v. Simon Family (SFG Company Dissolution & Equity-Stripping Suit)
Herb Simon, co-founder of Simon Property Group, sued his late nephew David Simon's family and 17 total defendants in Marion Superior Court, alleging David used his control as manager of SFG Manager LLC to unilaterally dissolve SFG Company LLC, a private real estate vehicle formed in 1995 to hold interests kept outside the public REIT, and transfer its assets to a new entity less than two weeks before his death on March 22, 2026. The complaint alleges the maneuver stripped Herb and other family equity holders of preferential interests without their notice or consent.
Undisclosed; dispute over equity interests in a privately held real estate holding company
Why it matters: Illustrates that privately held family real estate holding vehicles sitting outside a public REIT's own corporate structure can carry significant, largely invisible governance risk, and that an LLC manager's broad authority is not a license to restructure ownership unilaterally over a co-owner's objection. A cautionary example for family-controlled real estate enterprises of how manager-succession and consent-rights ambiguity can erupt into public litigation, particularly when a major restructuring is timed around a principal's terminal illness.
Jul 31, 2026
Marion Superior Court, Indiana
Premises Liability
Verified Update
On Appeal
Stewart v. Simon Property Group, L.P. (Greenwood Park Mall Shooting Negligent-Security Suit)
The Indiana Supreme Court heard oral argument on January 15, 2026 in the long-running negligent-security suit brought by shooting victim Kaya P.R. Stewart and her family against Greenwood Park Mall owner Simon Property Group, L.P. and its security contractor, Universal Protection Service, LLC (d/b/a Allied Universal Security Services), over the July 17, 2022 food-court mass shooting that killed three people. Both the Marion Superior Court and the Indiana Court of Appeals rejected the defendants' bids to dismiss the case, and the Supreme Court is now weighing the central question of whether a mass shooting at a shopping mall is foreseeable enough, as a matter of law, to support a negligent-security duty running from the mall owner and its security contractor to mall patrons.
Unspecified compensatory damages sought; underlying premises-liability and negligence claims
Why it matters: One of the most closely watched tests of the foreseeability element in mall and shopping-center negligent-security claims now pending before any state supreme court, with Indiana's status as an open-carry state adding a wrinkle the justices probed directly at argument. Whatever standard the Court adopts will shape how every commercial landlord and contracted security firm in Indiana litigates -- and insures against -- premises-liability exposure tied to third-party criminal acts, and is likely to be cited well beyond Indiana given how thin state supreme court authority remains on this exact question.
Jan 15, 2026
Supreme Court of Indiana
