A homeless man broke into a Portland granite shop before dawn, grabbed tools he planned to steal, and got shot by the owner sleeping in the back. Now he's suing that owner for $10 million, and a Multnomah County jury is being asked to take his side.
The civil trial against James Grant and Touchstone Granite & Marble began Aug. 10. Kenneth Voyles wants $5 million in compensatory damages and another $5 million in punitive damages. His complaint accuses Grant of battery, assault, negligence, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. It also claims the company is liable because Grant was securing the business when he fired.
Around 5:30 AM on March 6, 2023, Voyles pushed through the shop's outer gate, pried plywood off a garage door, cut through metal bars and squeezed inside. He told jurors he was homeless, cold and hungry. He also admitted he was there to steal.
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Grant, who was 70 at the time, was asleep in a back room. He woke up and walked into the showroom, where surveillance cameras caught the first confrontation. Grant threw a cup of urine in Voyles' face and lobbed tiles at him as he ran for the garage. The cameras didn't catch what came next.
By Voyles' account, he grabbed the bolt cutters to break a padlock on the garage door and get out. Grant came back with a handgun and fired without warning. Voyles says Grant told him he was going to die. Three rounds hit him in the arm and torso; he had a collapsed lung, shattered bones, and required vascular surgery.
Grant gave the jury a different account. He said he wasn't wearing his hearing aids and couldn't hear any apologies. He went for the gun because he wanted Voyles arrested, not gone. When he came back, Voyles raised the bolt cutters over his head and took a step toward him.
“I wanted him arrested,” Grant said. “I didn’t want to do deadly force.”
Grant is an Army veteran with a concealed carry permit who told jurors he's put more than 10,000 rounds downrange at shooting ranges. He knew how to use the gun.
Grant testified that he'd reported break-ins for thirty years and Portland police never once came out to investigate. They just took a report over the phone. They showed up after the shooting, though.
Police and prosecutors didn't charge Grant. Voyles pleaded no contest and was convicted of first-degree burglary and menacing. He got five years in drug treatment court and later did more than a year in prison for a separate string of car thefts. He also had meth in his system that morning, according to Grant's attorney.
Voyles' case challenges all three shots. Under Oregon law, deadly force is permitted when someone reasonably believes they're about to be attacked. It also applies to burglary in a dwelling, but Oregon draws a line between homes and commercial properties, and Grant's right to sleep at the shop is itself in dispute.
Grant stayed in the shop while visiting Portland. The city had already warned him that its industrial zoning barred him from living there, a wrinkle Voyles' side is using to argue Grant had no right to defend the space as a home. His attorney, David Wallace, says Grant could have simply locked himself in another room. Schilling counters that her client was facing a stranger in the dark swinging heavy bolt cutters.
Voyles already has a burglary conviction from that morning. He's asking the man he robbed to pay him $10 million for it.
"Kenneth Voyles is here filing this lawsuit, and he does not deserve to be rewarded," Schilling said. "And James Grant does not deserve to be punished."
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