Appeal Court Rules McDonald’s Not to Blame in Massacre

Continuing an unbroken string of legal setbacks for survivors of the massacre three years ago at a McDonald’s restaurant in San Ysidro, a state appellate court ruled Thursday that the fast-food chain could not be held responsible for the carnage wrought by James Oliver Huberty’s shooting spree.

The 4th District Court of Appeal upheld a lower court finding that the July 18, 1984, shootings were an unforeseeable event against which it would be unreasonable to have expected McDonald’s to take precautions.

In a unanimous ruling, the appellate court took McDonald’s to task for failing to provide even minimal security measures at the San Ysidro restaurant. Crime rates in the area were higher than for the city as a whole, the court noted, and most other businesses near the restaurant took more precautions than did McDonald’s.

But the court concluded that there was no precaution McDonald’s might have taken that would have anticipated or prevented Huberty’s deadly onslaught, in which 21 people were killed and 15 injured before the gunman was killed by a police sharpshooter.

“Under the circumstances here, it cannot be reasonably urged that had McDonald’s provided an unarmed, uniformed licensed security guard”--as did a nearby Jack-in-the-Box restaurant--”the massacre would have been prevented or its extent diminished,” wrote Justice Don R. Work.

“The record defies such a conclusion,” the opinion says. “Rather, it paints a portrait of a demented, mentally unbalanced man, bent on murder and self-destruction, who viewed the nearby McDonald’s restaurant with his binoculars from his apartment, kissed his wife good-bye and stated he was going ‘hunting for humans.’ ”

The court rejected the contention of lawyers for the survivors and victims that the case was governed by precedents imposing a duty on property owners to protect patrons if they have prior notice that visitors could face a risk of crime or violence.

The decision affects cases filed on behalf of 26 victims and survivors of the massacre. Lawyers for both sides, however, have predicted that rulings in the test cases are likely to be extended to other lawsuits involving another 37 survivors.

Previously, the appellate court rejected the same group of survivors’ claims against the City of San Diego--a ruling the state Supreme Court refused in May to overturn. Lawyers for the survivors contended that an inadequate police response had exacerbated the massacre’s carnage.