In a striking legal victory, Ansel Postell, an honors student at Benedict College, was awarded $692,000 by a Richland County jury following an experience with his former landlord. The case arose when Postell returned to his Columbia apartment in July 2022 to find it emptied and his belongings given away despite having paid six months’ rent in advance.
Postell’s mother had paid the rental company Campus Advantage $3,810 to secure their lease at The Rowan, an apartment complex. Upon discovering that his possessions—including clothes, electronics, and a custom-built computer valued at over $6,000—had been discarded, Postell attempted to seek compensation from the company. However, his efforts were met with silence, leading him to file a lawsuit.
After three hours of deliberation, the jury awarded Postell $692,000, which included $230,000 for actual damages and $462,500 as punitive damages. “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,” Postell commented after the trial. He graduated from Benedict magna cum laude with a degree in cybersecurity in May.
The Trial
In court, the timeline of events painted a troubling picture. Despite the company’s initial admission of fault, it refused to compensate Postell or his mother, Shawndolena Postell, for the lost items. As outlined in the lawsuit, dealing with the aftermath of the incident severely disrupted Postell’s academic performance during the critical first days of the new semester, jeopardizing scholarships and benefits he had previously earned.
Todd Lyle, Postell’s attorney, noted that two years ago, he had offered to settle the case for $75,000, but the offer that was rejected by the defendants.
The trial lasted four days under the scrutiny of Judge Milton Kimpson, who presided over the proceedings. Beyond punitive damages, the jurors found Campus Advantage guilty of unlawfully seizing Postell’s property, breaching rental contracts, and demonstrating negligence in supervision of their employees.
“Almost half a million dollars in punitive damages is sending a huge message,” Lyle said. “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.
