Two former tenants of the Silverado apartments in downtown Salt Lake City are suing their former landlords, alleging they prioritized collecting rent payments over residents’ safety before a deadly Memorial Day explosion and fire that killed two people.
In the complaint filed last month, G.T. Esplin and another tenant accuse their former landlords of wrongful death and “reckless, wanton, grossly negligent, and/or intentional misconduct,” citing their “inexcusable” failure to evict a tenant who regularly smoked while using oxygen tanks — despite several resident complaints — which fire investigators later determined triggered the May 30 explosion.
The fire ignited around 2 a.m. that day, when the tenant in question lit a cigarette on his first-floor balcony. Residents first reported hearing a loud boom, then more explosions — the sound of many oxygen tanks exploding, investigators later determined — as the flames spread up the front of the building.
The man who sparked the fire died in the blaze. Another tenant, 60-year-old David Richards, died nearly two days later from injuries he suffered while trying to escape from the building’s third floor.
According to the complaint, Richards had only made it to the bottom of the property’s stairwell, where another tenant found him “lying face-down, partially naked, and severely burned.”
From there, the tenant helped Richards out of the building, “remembering Richards’ skin peeling off his body” as the tenant opened the front doors, the complaint states.
An officer who then helped carry Richards across the street reported that he had human skin burned into his pants, the complaint states. Another officer reported seeing steam coming off Richards, and recalled pouring a full bottle of water on him to try to cool him off.
Richards died on May 31 from acute burn injury and acute respiratory failure from smoke inhalation, according to his death certificate. His estate is listed as a plaintiff in the complaint.
The tenant who helped Richards out of the building suffered burns to his hands and wrists, as well as his eyes. Three firefighters were also injured.
Esplin had previously called the fire a “preventable tragedy.”
“We just knew it was going to happen,” he told The Salt Lake Tribune last fall.
Complaints dated back to at least 2020
(Courtesy Erica Larabee) The Silverado apartments in downtown Salt Lake City burn on May 30, 2022.
The complaint states that multiple times, dating back to at least 2020, residents had raised concerns about the man who smoked near his oxygen tanks.
Each defendant listed in the complaint was aware of the complaints, the document alleges, including DSK Capital, Daisymax Properties, Daisymax Silverado, Dreamland Realty and Pineapple Property Group. Dreamland was Silverado’s property manager prior to August 2020, and Pineapple was the property manager after that.
In an email sent to landlords in 2020, one tenant said the man’s smoking was “a huge safety concern, and I’m really bothered that he is putting the lives of everyone else in the building at risk, including several children. I hope there is something you can do about it.”
But according to the complaint, no action was taken, even though the tenant’s smoking was considered a violation of his lease and grounds for eviction.
“There is no question” that the defendants knew about the tenant’s conduct but “failed to remedy the foreseeably hazardous condition, choosing instead to continue collecting rent” from the man whose smoking triggered the blaze, the complaint states.
“I was fortunate to escape that death trap without even a scratch,” Esplin told The Tribune.
He and everyone who survived from the Silverado’s 13 units were displaced after the fire, according to an investigative report on the blaze. In the days that followed, tenants also said the units inside the boarded-up building were looted.
“How they allowed our building to be looted shows how little they cared about me too,” Esplin said. “I could have died.”
Attorney Peter Barlow, who is representing Daisymax Properties, Daisymax Silverado and DSK Capital, declined to comment for this story. Anna Nelson and Cliff Payne, who are representing Pineapple Property Group and Dreamland Realty, respectively, also declined to comment.
Representing the plaintiffs are Jonathan Schofield and Steven Glauser. “We hope the Defendants recognize their liability and exposure and are willing to try to resolve this case and fairly compensate the Silverado’s tenants for their losses, including the family of Dave Richards, who tragically passed away,” Schofield said in an email. “If not, we are prepared to proceed to trial.”
The aftermath
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Silverado apartments, located at 243 S. 300 East in Salt Lake City, Sept. 16, 2022. The property went up in flames after an explosion on May 30, 2022, leaving two dead. Two former tenants are now suing.
The tenant who helped Richards escape the burning building now suffers from PTSD, “mostly from reliving the traumatic events of pulling Richards from the burning building and knowing that his friend is gone,” the complaint states. The tenant didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Tribune.
According to Richards’ personal obituary, he was a well-known figure in Salt Lake City’s handball and squash communities. “He was a champion of the underdog, had a tender heart, and was a quirky, colorful character,” it reads. “A great conversationalist and listener, Dave recognized the humanity in everyone.”
Efforts to reach Richards’ sister, the representative of his estate, were unsuccessful, but the complaint states his family is “heartbroken at the loss of their father and brother.”
“Imagining how he left this life and all he went through is particularly difficult for them,” it continues.
Esplin said most of the money the plaintiffs are demanding in damages will go toward Richards’ estate and the tenant who helped Richards escape the fire.
“I walk past the Silverado every single day to work,” Esplin said. “... While the outpouring of support from the community gave me faith in our future, the craven denial of responsibility by [the] landlord makes me sick.”
As of Tuesday, none of the defendants had filed a formal response to the complaint in 3rd District Court.
A GoFundMe campaign organized to help former Silverado tenants had raised nearly $4,000 as of last week.
