The back of 11 Elm St. is pictured here on Feb. 26, the day after a fatal fire there. (Enterprise file photo — Sydney Emerson)

SARANAC LAKE — The family of a man who died in an apartment building fire on Elm Street is suing the landlord of the property, accusing him of causing the man’s death though negligence.

Saranac Lake resident Michael Simmons died in a fire at his apartment at 11 Elm St. on Feb. 25. The building is owned by Bob Decker. Decker has denied the allegations of negligence and has asked through his legal counsel for the case to be dismissed.

The lawsuit filed in April by Lake Placid attorney John Wilkins, which seeks $8 million in damages, comes from Simmons’ mother and his 9-year-old granddaughter.

A tentative trial date before Franklin County Judge John Ellis has been set for Dec. 2, Wilkins said. The case was expedited by the court because Simmons’ mother is elderly.

Decker’s properties have been written up for 300 code violations in the past 18 years, with numerous properties having fire safety violations — including lack of egress in an emergency, exposed electrical wiring, lack of portable fire extinguishers and inadequate detectors, according to inspection reports obtained by the Enterprise.

As Decker sells off the rest of his apartment buildings around the village and gets out of the landlord business, the court has also approved a request from Simmons’ family that the profits from these sales are put in escrow, to be potentially used as damages, if the court finds Decker responsible.

The case is currently in the discovery phase and there are still key reports and information missing from the full story. Chiefly, the state Office of Fire Prevention and Control’s investigation is incomplete.

The Enterprise has submitted a Freedom of Information Law request seeking the results of the investigation from the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, but the report has not been completed yet. The state division has said the Enterprise’s FOIL request will be granted or denied before the end of the month, but has not provided an expected completion date for the investigation yet.

“Decker anticipates that the fire investigation report (when completed), and other information, will show that the Plaintiff’s decedent was responsible for causing the fire that took his life and that there were working fire alarms in the subject property as well as a stair lift (motorized chair), which Plaintiff decedent frequently used,” Decker’s attorney, Luke Babbie, wrote in court documents.

Decker and Babbie allege that the fire was caused “in whole” or “in the most part” by “carelessness, negligence, assumption of risk, culpable conduct and want of care of (Simmons).”

Decker could not be reached for comment on this story over the span of three days.

–

The case

–

Simmons’ right leg was amputated above the knee, so he walked with a prosthetic leg or used a wheelchair.

“The apartment at the residence was not handicapped accessible,” the lawsuit alleges. Decker and his lawyer deny this.

The lawsuit claims that the only way to leave the second floor apartment was by the stairs. Decker and his lawyer have also denied this, saying there was a motorized stair lift.

If Simmons’ prosthetic leg was off at night, or if he was in his wheelchair, he had no ability to escape in the event of a fire, the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit alleges that there was no working smoke alarm in his apartment. Decker and his lawyer deny this, stating that there were smoke detectors and that they were in working order.

Wilkins points to an 11 Elm St. resident’s report to the Enterprise that her children only learned of the fire when they saw smoke coming from the floor and the wall. Her apartment was next to Simmons’ apartment.

Saranac Lake Police Chief Darin Perrotte said at the time that the fire started in Simmons’ apartment.

Simmons’ body was found in his wheelchair, badly burned, according to the lawsuit, which speculates that he likely died of smoke inhalation.

“Had a working smoke alarm or detection device been installed in the apartment, Michael Simmons would likely have had enough warning and thus time to install his prosthetic leg and escape his apartment by walking down the stairs and out of the building before being overcome by smoke and flame,” Wilkins wrote in the lawsuit.

Village Code Enforcement Officer Chris McClatchie inspected the smoke detectors and fire extinguishers in the staircase and basement of the building in November. But he couldn’t get access into the apartments.

His records show the last time that building’s apartments were all inspected was in 2016. He said that apartment buildings are supposed to be inspected every three years. McClatchie had inspected the exterior, stairwell and basement of the building in November 2023, records show, but he was unable to inspect the units themselves.

At that time, he said the building failed a fire safety inspection and needed all new emergency lighting and new smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in the apartments, basement and stairwells.

McClatchie said after the fire, there were smoke alarms and extinguishers on the side of the building he saw, which was not as damaged by the fire. On the side where the fire started, it’s hard to tell because everything is destroyed, he said. He’s heard conflicting accounts from tenants, but he isn’t yet sure himself.

Seven residents, including two children ages 12 and 17, lost their home in the structure fire. Two cats also died in the blaze.

“I have no doubt that he feels very badly about what happened,” Wilkins said of Decker.

–

Sales and a restraining order

–

The lawsuit seeks $2 million in damages for loss of support for Simmons’ family and for his conscious pain and suffering, as well as $6 million in punitive damages for alleged negligence.

Decker’s building was “uninsured because (it was) uninsurable,” the lawsuit alleges. So his personal assets are on the line to satisfy any financial judgment. But Wilkins accused Decker of attempting to liquidate his real estate holding to hide them from being used as payment toward damages.

He alleges that Decker’s attorney has advised him to sell his real estate assets in Saranac Lake and reinvest in a home in Florida, where real estate is exempt from creditors.

“I believe the strategy is intended commit a fraud on his creditors,” Wilkins wrote in the lawsuit, saying this move would insulate Decker from liability and any judgement would be ineffectual.

Ellis approved a temporary restraining order in late April, placing the money from the sale of Decker’s properties in escrow to be held in limbo. This order is temporary and subject to change.

Babbie, who was hired after the order was approved, later argued that Wilkins was assuming a victory in court and that the law does not allow the court to restrain asset transfers at this stage.

Decker had owned several other apartment properties in town — 155 Broadway, 165 Charles St., 189 Kiwassa Road, 16 Morris Way and 23 Old Military Road — valued by the assessor at a combined $741,637. The lawsuit says these were listed for sale on March 15 and 18 for an aggregate sale price of $1,345,000 but the actual sale prices will likely differ.

Currently, Franklin and Essex county property tax records show three of the six total properties have sold for a combined $525,000.

The 115 Broadway property sold to Northern Holdings Group, LLC on July 29 for $225,000.

The 165 Charles St. property sold to Jeremy Schenk on July 3 for $150,000. The 23 Old Military Road property sold to Schenk on Aug. 6 for $150,000.

The Franklin County property tax records list 189 Kiwassa Road, 16 Morris Way and 11 Elm St. as being owned by Decker. These properties may have been sold but not reflected in the records yet, since these records tend to take some time to update.

–

Conditions

–

As Decker’s other properties were sold, the new owners finally brought in McClatchie to look at the apartments, after years of him and other officers trying to gain access to do inspections.

This is a widespread problem throughout the village, McClatchie said. He can’t just go in because they are private properties, and often people don’t want him to come in because they know their units are not up to code and if he condemns the apartment, that means they’d have to leave their home and there aren’t many other available places to live in town.

This happened in April, when a new owner of Decker’s former 155 Broadway property brought McClatchie in and residents of three of the seven units in the building were ordered to move out when their units were condemned.

The units were deemed unfit for human occupancy because they did not have a secondary means of egress — no alternate route out in the case of a fire.

The furnace was not running and residents were heating their homes with their ovens open with the broil setting on high or with mini-heaters. One resident said their heater caught fire once, but they were able to put it out.

“How the place didn’t catch fire already, I’ll never know,” McClatchie said at the time.

(Former Enterprise intern Galen Halasz contributed reporting.)