Harbourside Place electrocution: Family of late Jupiter man settles lawsuit with complex

JUPITER — The wrongful death lawsuit against Harbourside Place filed by the widow of a man who died saving his children who played in the retail complex’s electrically charged fountain has reached a resolution.

The family of Nate Davenport, the 45-year-old Jupiter native who was electrocuted at the fountain on Oct. 22, 2023, reached a settlement with Harbourside Place during an out-of-court mediation on Wednesday, March 6, court records show.

Details of the settlement were not immediately released. A spokesperson for Harbourside Place declined to comment on the settlement to The Palm Beach Post. Scott B. Smith of Palm Beach Gardens, the attorney for the Davenport family, confirmed the resolution.

"The parties in the Davenport matter have reached an amicable and confidential resolution," Smith said. "For privacy reasons and so as to further protect Mrs. Davenport and her four minor children, we will have no further comment."

The town declared the electrical system for the fountain unsafe after electricians inspected it on Oct. 23, the day after the electrocution. The fountain and the splash pad at the complex have been shut down since the day of the incident. The fountain's pool is now boarded up, enclosed in sheets of wood.

What happened that day at the Harbourside Place fountain

Davenport and his friend Seth Kozak visited Harbourside Place on Oct. 22, 2023, with four of their children and had lunch on the patio outside the Jupiter Grill. Three of the children went to play in the fountain and splash pad area, which was within eyeshot of where Davenport was sitting.

Signs posted near the fountain tell visitors that swimming in its waters is prohibited. One child fell into the water just before 3:30 p.m. He said he was in the water for only about 30 seconds before he felt an electrical current go through his body. He lost consciousness. Another child felt a shock in one of his legs. The third never felt a shock.

When he heard the children screaming, Davenport jumped in the fountain to help and immediately froze and fell over. Kozak got in the water to help Davenport but felt a shock and then another as he reached to help his child.

One child helped Kozak from the water, and he pulled Davenport out and began performing CPR until Jupiter police and Palm Beach County Fire Rescue medics arrived.

The medics took Davenport and Kozak to Jupiter Medical Center, where Davenport died. The three children received treatment at St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach, where medics took them as trauma patients.

Palm Beach Gardens woman reported feeling shocks at fountain earlier

Dina Fleck of Palm Beach Gardens told Jupiter police on Oct. 24 that she and her friends felt electrical shocks at the fountain on July 10. She said she tried to tell a Harbourside Place employee about the problem, but the employee “dismissed it and didn’t believe” her.

Fleck said she saw exposed wires in the water that day but did not notice any broken lights. Neither Fleck nor her friends sustained any injuries from the shocks they felt in July.

A spokesperson for Harbourside Place said on Nov. 2, however, that the complex’s owners were never made aware of any dangerous conditions at the fountain before the electrocution.

Smith investigated whether the fountain shocked other visitors before the incident. He told The Palm Beach Post that others did come forward.

In a letter sent in November, Jupiter told the owners either to repair or demolish the fountain and to obtain permits within 90 days to do so. Jim Brown, the town's top building official, told Harbourside to keep the fountain "unenergized" until then.

Champion Electrical Contracting told the town on behalf of Harbourside that it would remove a circuit breaker from the fountain which would remove power from all its lights and pumps.

Smith asked the court in February to bar them from doing so, claiming that the fountain still needs inspecting. He wrote that the fountain would need to be filled with water and energized for further testing.

Lawsuit claimed negligence, Harbourside denied knowing about dangerous conditions before incident

The lawsuit has been litigated since it was filed toward the end of December. It claimed that Harbourside Place was negligent when it allowed broken lights inside the fountain to leak electrical voltage into the fountain pools that day.

The lawsuit claimed that Harbourside Place’s owners created an attractive nuisance and “should have known of the dangerous and unsafe condition” at the fountain.

It went on to say that Harbourside Place failed to install a ground fault-circuit interrupter, or GFCI, for the fountain, its lights and its electrical systems. GFCIs stop current that is too low or too high.

The lawsuit sought more than $50,000 in damages and claimed emotional distress was inflicted on Nate Davenport’s wife, Amy, and their children.

Barry A. Postman of West Palm Beach, the attorney representing Harbourside Place, said that the complex’s owners were completely unaware of any problem with the fountain before the incident.

“Our first concern continues to be with the family as they go through and deal with this tragic loss,” said Postman in a prepared statement provided by Harbourside Place in December. “We know how tough this tragedy is for this beautiful family and we pray for them during this time.”

"Had Harbourside known there was an issue, they would have moved immediately to fix it. Harbourside had no knowledge whatsoever that there was any problem with the fountain. We are confident that the true facts will become known during the legal process.”

In December, Smith told The Palm Beach Post that the lawsuit "is another significant step forward in the process of discovering and learning how and why this terribly dangerous and concealed condition was created and allowed to exist amongst all of us here in our community.”

Maya Washburn covers northern Palm Beach County for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida-Network. Reach her at mwashburn@pbpost.com. Support local journalism: Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Family of man electrocuted in fountain settles with Harbourside Place