This story, originally published at 10:30 a.m. Sept. 14, 2024, was updated at 11:30 a.m. with information from Saturday’s press conference.
The parents of a young woman who died in a February 2023 fire at the Arrive Silver Spring apartment complex filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the property’s owners and management company on Thursday–the day their daughter would have turned 27, according to the family.
Cesar Linares and Zuleika Ojeda, the parents of fire victim Melanie Diaz, are seeking the maximum amount of damages allowed under the law, a total of $2.3 million, in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland, according to attorney Matthew Christ of the Florida-based law firm Domnick Cunnigham & Yaffa, which is representing Diaz’s family.
The parents are claiming financial loss from funerary expenses and loss of income, as well as pain and suffering and mental anguish, resulting from Melanie Diaz’s death in the Feb. 18, 2023, blaze at the complex at 8750 Georgia Ave. in downtown Silver Spring, according to the lawsuit.
The suit was filed against Trinity Property Consultants LLC of Irvine, California, the property management company for Arrive Silver Spring, and CP4 Silver Spring, the owner of Arrive Silver Spring, on behalf of the plaintiffs.
Trinity Property Consultants could not be reached for comment Saturday. No contact information could be found online for CP4 Silver Spring, which shares an address with Trinity Property Consultants.
During a press conference Saturday morning in front of Arrive Silver Spring, Linares spoke of his beloved daughter and urged the complex owners to fix the issues that allegedly led to the deadly fire “because no money is going to replace my daughter’s life.”
“I pray every single day for everybody in this high-rise building,” said Linares, tears streaming as he stood on the sidewalk beside his wife and son, Cesar Jr. The family had driven 18 hours from their home in Florida to mark their daughter’s birthday with lawsuit filing, he said.
The suit accuses Trinity Property Consultants of negligence, stating that the building did not have appropriate fire safety mechanisms in place, including smoke detectors, heat-resistant glass, sprinklers and ventilation in emergency evacuation stairwells. In addition, an evacuation door hatch had been sealed, according to the filing. Diaz died in a stairwell from smoke asphyxiation while attempting to evacuate the building, according to authorities.
The plaintiffs claim that Diaz “sustained fatal bodily injuries as a result of the Defendant’s negligence.”
The suit also alleges that Trinity and CP4 did not properly inspect the electrical wiring and fire alarm system in the building and did not adequately alert residents to the fire.
“Melanie died while trying to escape an entirely preventable and entirely foreseeable fire,” Christ said at the press conference.
Diaz was a graduate of Georgetown University and worked at the Aspen Institute, a climate change research and policy think tank in Washington, D.C., according to her family. She was remembered as a “ray of sunshine in everyone’s lives,” according to a GoFundMe created to support funeral arrangements for the family. The now-disabled fundraiser raised more than $36,400.
In a press release announcing the lawsuit, Diaz’s family said that Melanie had just begun working at the think tank and had a “promising career.”
“She had dreams of starting a family one day. She had dreams of traveling the world. Her life was cut short because the defendants cut corners,” the family said.
“We do not want anyone else to go through the pain our family has gone through,” the family said. “The defendants ignored the need to invest in routine fire safety preventive measures. That choice cost us everything.”
Diaz died in the blaze while evacuating the building with her two dogs, according to the release.
At least 17 other residents and three firefighters were hospitalized after the fire, and nearly 400 residents were displaced after their units were condemned. The complex’s lack of sprinklers, which were not required under state law, came under scrutiny by public officials.
According to state law and county regulations, sprinklers are not required in every unit of buildings built prior to 1974. More than 70 apartment complexes countywide don’t have sprinklers in every unit, according to multiple news reports.
Local fire officials have said that sprinklers would have made a difference in the Arrive fire and potentially saved Diaz’s life.
The lack of sprinklers is “one basis for the lawsuit. It is not the sole basis for what we are alleging they did wrong,” Christ said. “The law that says you didn’t have to have fire sprinklers for buildings this old doesn’t insulate you from liability. If you violate the building code, for example, that is evidence of negligence, but the opposite is not true.”
In April, survivors of the deadly fire as well as Diaz’s parents urged the Montgomery County Council to pass tenant rights legislation that would require complexes to implement stronger fire safety precautions.
The legislation, sponsored by council Vice President Kate Stewart (D-Dist. 4) was adopted by the council on July 16. It requires residential leases to include information related to renter’s insurance, automatic sprinkler systems and emergency evacuation and safety plans.
In addition, the law requires multiunit apartment complex owners to notify residents and prospective renters about whether their buildings have sprinklers and to provide information about the risks of living in a building without sprinklers.
On Aug. 8, County Executive Marc Elrich signed the legislation into county law.
“Not a day has gone by that we worked on this bill that we did not hold Melanie in our hearts because we know that even though we’ve lost her, that we need to do better, and she is pushing us to do better,” Stewart said at the August bill signing.
The passage of the legislation follows the Maryland General Assembly’s adoption during its 2024 session of a bill sponsored by Silver Spring-based Del. Lorig Charkoudian (D-Dist. 20) that requires apartment complexes to take stronger fire safety measures, including installing fire alarms and emergency lights in common areas and requiring fire safety education and evacuation information to be provided to tenants.
