This story was updated Sept. 16 to include video of the news conference.
The family of Melanie Diaz, who was killed while trying to escape from a fire at the Arrive Silver Spring on Feb. 18, 2023. filed a $2.3 million lawsuit against the owners of the apartment complex.
The lawsuit, which was filed Sept. 12 on what would have been Diaz’s 27th birthday, also asks for economic damages concerning loss of income for the young woman. She had lived on the 11th floor of the apartment complex on Georgia Road in Silver Spring.
While fighting back tears, Cesar Diaz Linares spoke Saturday morning in front of the Arrive apartments to say how much the family missed his daughter and what hopes he had for her.
“No matter what, every single day, tell your loved ones how much you love them, because you don’t know when is going to be the last time,” he said, adding, “I don’t have a chance to talk to my daughter anymore.”
Diaz Linares acknowledged, “No money is going to replace any single life.” However, he said he hoped this lawsuit would save others from the same fate his daughter and his family suffered.
Matthew Christ, attorney with Domnick, Cunningham and Yaffa, called the fire “an entirely preventable and entirely foreseeable fire that broke out.”
The wrongful death lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland against CP4 Silver Spring LLC and its owners, Trinity Property Consultants in California. A call to the company for comment has not yet been returned.
The suit charges the apartment complex with negligence for failing to maintain and inspect the apartments against fires. It specifically pointed to a non-functioning door latch that separated the seventh-floor hallway and the stairwell that Diaz climbed down with her two dogs to escape the blaze.
Because the door didn’t close properly, Diaz suffocated from all the smoke, Christ said.
“You have to do more that the bare minimum” to keep tenants said, he said.
According to Christ, Diaz was the first member of her family to go to college and was active in many causes, including suicide prevention. “In short, Melanie was a superstar. She was going places.”
Díaz was an environmentalist who worked at the Aspen Institute and planned to spend her career studying the effects of the environment on the most vulnerable people.
Since the fire, in which numerous people were displaced, Montgomery County Council and the Maryland Assembly have passed laws to ensure that apartment residents know what their insurance covers and whether there are sprinklers in the complex.
The fire started in an apartment on the 7th floor that did not have a working smoke detector.
In May of 2023, the fire was classified as “undetermined” with factors like a lack of sprinkler system affecting the severity of the blaze, according to a report. from the Montgomery County Fire and Explosives Investigation Unit.
There were multiple electrical items, some charging, in the apartment of origin, according to the report. A malfunction in one of the devices or the apartment’s electric system is a possible cause, but smoking materials could not be ruled out.
No criminal act or intention is suspected. The case is closed, according to the report.
