WEST LAKELAND TOWNSHIP, Minn. — ADT Security Services Inc. has reached a settlement in a lawsuit over a failed home burglar alarm with the estate of a mother of four children.
The amount ADT will pay to care for Teri Lee’s children was not disclosed.
In 2006, Lee and her partner, Timothy Hawkinson, were shot and killed in her home by her ex-boyfriend, Steven Van Keuren. Weeks prior to the incident, Lee spent $2,405 on an intrusion alarm system for her home, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.
After Van Keuren cut the phone lines outside Lee’s house, the alarm malfunctioned numerous times during the night of the double murder. It was only after two of Lee’s children opened the front door to escape the shootings that the alarm activated.
In a 2007 lawsuit, the family claimed that an ADT salesperson misrepresented the system’s capabilities and that it was improperly installed. ADT argued that a clause in the contract Lee signed declared the company’s maximum liability at $500. The company settled the suit just days before it was to go to trial.
Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune
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