Crime Liability Ruling Targets Businesses
The California Supreme Court issued two rulings Thursday making it easier for victims of violent crime to recover damages from the owners of the businesses where the crimes occurred.
The rulings mark a departure from a recent trend in the law and are likely to have significant ramifications, according to legal experts.
“I think it is highly significant,” said Sharon Arkin, president of the Consumer Attorneys of California, who filed a friend-of-the-court brief in one of the cases and applauded the decisions. “I think the pendulum is swinging back a little” in favor of victims after a number of adverse rulings, Arkin said.
Attorney Deborah J. LaFetra, of the Pacific Legal Foundation, who filed friend-of-the-court briefs in both cases, decried the decisions. LaFetra said she felt the rulings imposed new, unwarranted duties on California business owners and would increase their costs.
In the first case, local gang members assaulted Charles E. Morris IV in August 2000 outside a 24-hour Mexican restaurant near Imperial Beach in San Diego County.
Morris was challenged by Richard Cuevas and Saul De La Vega in the parking lot of Victoria’s Mexican Food at 1 a.m. When Morris said he was from Imperial Beach, Cuevas punched him. Morris’ friends jumped into the fight, and Cuevas ran into the restaurant and grabbed a 12-inch knife from the kitchen. He stabbed Morris twice in the back, then once in the neck.
Morris was hospitalized and suffered nerve damage. Cuevas was arrested months later.
According to the opinion, employees watched the attack through a large plate glass window and did nothing. Morris sued, contending that the workers at the very least should have called 911.
The California Supreme Court agreed. In a 7-0 decision, the court ruled that the restaurant had a special duty to its customers and that placing a call to 911 was a “minimal safety measure that imposes no undue hardship on a business owner.”
The court said the attack was clearly foreseeable, distinguishing the case from other recent rulings in which the court said business owners were not held liable because they could not have predicted a crime would be committed.
“It requires no mastery of metaphysical philosophy or economic risk analysis to appreciate the strong possibility of serious injury to persons against whom such imminent or ongoing criminal conduct is aimed,” Chief Justice Ronald George wrote for the court.
The justices rejected the employees’ excuse that they were afraid the gang members could have seen them placing the 911 call. Rather, the court said, “there are ... indications in the record that the employees may have failed to place such a call because they wished to avoid involvement with the authorities due to their respective immigration status.”
Justice Janice Rogers Brown, who is about to leave the court to become a judge on the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., wrote a concurring opinion, urging the court to “proceed with caution when expanding the legal obligations of business owners, especially when the expansion of a duty in these cases may result in reduced services and lost job opportunities in the least affluent areas of our cities.”
Stephen Estey, who represented Morris, said the court was right to distinguish this case from those in which the crime was unforeseeable.
“My goodness, when you see your customer being carved up with a knife” it is not too much to expect someone to call 911, he said.
But Mark Israel, who represented the restaurant, said he thought the court had retreated “from bright line rules” and that the ruling would lead to more groundless lawsuits.
The second case decided Thursday stemmed from an incident at Trax Bar & Grill in Turlock in Central California. The tavern was girded for trouble, employing two weekend security guards, one stationed on a stool in the parking lot and one inside the bar.
One Saturday night in 1998, Michael W. Delgado and his wife, Michele, were sitting at a table when they noticed a group of patrons glaring at them.
Michele complained to the inside security guard, identified only as “Nichols,” who concluded a fight was imminent and suggested that the Delgados leave.
When the couple got to the parking lot, the outside guard was not there, but a group of 12 to 20 men was standing around, contrary to the bar’s policy of dispersing such congregations.
Jacob Joseph, a man who had been glaring at the Delgados, came out and assaulted Delgado, and the other men joined in, the opinion said. Joseph was later convicted of felony assault.
Delgado suffered a fractured skull and deep bruising and was hospitalized for 16 days. He subsequently experienced adverse personality changes as well as chronic headaches, according to Thursday’s ruling.
A jury awarded Delgado $81,000, but a state appeals court overturned the verdict, saying the tavern had no duty to protect the customers. On Thursday, the Supreme Court disagreed.
“The trial record contains evidence that defendant’s employee and guard, Nichols, was aware of facts that led him to conclude, at least a few minutes prior to the occurrence of the assault (and prior to plaintiff’s departure from the bar), that a fight was likely to occur between Joseph and his ... companions and plaintiff, absent some intervention on Nichols’ part,” Justice George wrote for the majority in the 5-2 decision.
Nichols should have taken some “minimally burdensome measures” to prevent the assault, such as attempting to dissuade Joseph and his companions from leaving the bar until the Delgados had a chance to depart, George said.
Justice Joyce Kennard, joined by Justice Brown, dissented. She said “the vicious group attack that occurred outside the restaurant was not reasonably foreseeable” and therefore no liability should be imposed on the restaurant owner.
LaFetra, of Pacific Legal Foundation, said she was troubled by the rulings. She said there should be a uniform standard for businesses to know when they can be held responsible for a crime against patrons.
LaFetra contended that the California Supreme Court had failed to provide a coherent standard.
But USC law professor Gregory C. Keating applauded the rulings. He said it would have been “remarkable” if the court had ruled against Morris in the San Diego case.
In addition, he said it was “close to absurd” to say that it was not foreseeable that the Delgados would be assaulted.
