More than three years after a fistfight inside a Florida City Walmart erupted into gunfire, killing a 23-year-old shopper and wounding several bystanders, his family has filed a lawsuit against the retail giant. The suit accuses Walmart of failing to keep customers safe inside its Supercenter on South Dixie Highway, where police say Nathaniel Baez was shot and killed during a confrontation between two groups.
According to WPLG Local 10, Baez's family filed the civil suit this week, seeking corporate accountability for what they describe as inadequate store security. Police say the 23-year-old was shot and killed during the confrontation at the Florida City Walmart. The shooting happened shortly before 3 p.m. on July 19, 2023, inside the Supercenter at 33501 S. Dixie Highway, near the southern terminus of the Florida Turnpike, as reported by CBS News Miami.
A Brawl That Turned Into Gunfire
Investigators say a fight broke out between two groups inside the store before weapons were drawn, according to the same CBS News Miami report. Baez was struck during the melee and later died after being airlifted to Jackson South Trauma Center. The chaos didn't stop with his death — a 72-year-old bystander was shot in the foot, and six other shoppers were hurt as panic spread through the store, with one woman suffering a head injury while fleeing and five others treated for cuts and scrapes.
Police arrested 25-year-old Steve Lestin and charged him with second-degree murder and attempted felony murder, alleging he shot Baez during the altercation; investigators said Lestin confessed to the shooting, per the CBS News Miami account. Two other men involved in the physical fight, 20-year-old Roberto Acevedo and 21-year-old Jimari Hodge, were arrested and charged with battery. Criminal proceedings against the men moved forward separately from the civil claims now facing Walmart, according to Local 10.
Florida's Tort Reform Complicates the Case
The Baez family's lawsuit lands in a legal landscape reshaped by Florida's 2023 civil justice overhaul. Under House Bill 837, signed into law in March 2023, Florida Statute § 768.0701 now requires juries in negligent security cases to weigh the percentage of fault belonging to every contributing party — including the people who pulled the trigger — a shift detailed by The Florida Senate. Before the change, property owners like Walmart typically bore a larger share of financial liability in these cases.
The same reform package cut the statute of limitations for negligence lawsuits from four years down to two for causes of action accruing after March 24, 2023, according to the Florida Senate's summary of the legislation. To prevail, Florida premises liability law generally requires plaintiffs to show a business failed to take reasonable security precautions against criminal acts that were legally foreseeable, per Florida Premises Liability Lawyers. Plaintiffs typically lean on evidence of prior violent crimes at a property to establish that foreseeability.
Not Walmart's First Negligent Security Fight in South Florida
The Florida City store, registered as Walmart Supercenter Store #2727, serves as a primary retail hub for the southernmost stretch of Miami-Dade County near the gateway to the Florida Keys. This isn't the only South Florida Walmart location to face this kind of legal challenge. In November 2023, Walmart was named in a separate negligent security lawsuit after a fatal shooting at its Lauderdale Lakes store, where a customer had intervened in an assault — a case that similarly alleged the retailer failed to maintain adequate safety personnel.
It remains unclear what security personnel or protocols were active inside store #2727 at the time of the 2023 altercation, and whether any prior police calls to the location will be used to argue the violence was foreseeable. How Walmart's legal team plans to respond to the premises liability claims has not been disclosed. Gun violence tied to South Florida Walmart properties has continued to surface in recent months — Hoodline previously reported on a fatal deputy shooting outside another Miami-Dade Walmart and a shooting in a North Lauderdale Walmart parking lot.
