Ansel Postell was shocked when his landlord threw away his possessions and emptied his apartment. The incident occurred in July 2022, when the honors student at Benedict College returned to Columbia to begin a new school year after paying the rental company $3,810 for six months of advance rent.
Postell later filed a lawsuit after the company, Campus Advantage (known as The Rowan), which has hundreds of apartments between Bluff and Shop roads, failed to respond to his demands for payment for the lost goods.
Following three hours of deliberation, a Richland County jury awarded Postell $692,000 in damages last Thursday for wrongs he mentioned in his lawsuit. The jury form states that the award includes $230,000 in actual damages and $462,500 in punitive damages.
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Judge Milton Kimpson presided over the four-day trial. According to court testimony, Postell’s missing belongings included a television, electrical devices, all of his clothes, and a high-end computer he had constructed himself that was worth at least $6,000. He received his magna cum laude from Benedict earlier this year, where he majored in cybersecurity.
Postell’s attorney, Todd Lyle of Lexington, also told The State newspaper that Postell will receive triple damages, or some or all of the $692,000 total award, as the jury determined that Campus Advantage violated South Carolina’s Unfair Trade Practices Act.
In addition, the jury concluded that the rental company failed to oversee its staff, breached a rental agreement, and unjustly seized Postell’s property.
As per court records, Lyle made an offer to settle the matter for $75,000 two years ago. But, according to the law, the defendants must now pay two years of interest at 8% a year, Lyle said.
Lyle remarked, “They could have paid $75,000 two years ago and been done with it. It just shows how out of touch they were.”
He added, “Almost half a million dollars in punitive damages is sending a huge message. This case could have been settled for far less, but their obstinance and insistence that they did no wrong ultimately drove this verdict as high as it did,” Lyle said.
Postell told the outlet after his victory, “I’m glad I was given the opportunity for this to be taken up in court, and the jury was able to make a decision on the evidence that we provided.”
