Case Title: Dudas v. Glenwood Golf Club

Citation: 

Docket Number: 001539

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 2001-01-12T00:00:00Z

Document:
Present:  All the Justices 
 
MICHAEL R. DUDAS 
 
OPINION BY 
v.  Record No. 001539 
JUSTICE LAWRENCE L. KOONTZ, JR. 
 
January 12, 2001 
GLENWOOD GOLF CLUB, INC. 
 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF RICHMOND 
Melvin R. Hughes, Jr., Judge 
 
 
In this appeal, we consider whether the trial court 
properly awarded summary judgment to a business owner on the 
ground that it did not owe a duty of care to warn or protect its 
invitee who was the victim of a criminal assault by unknown 
third parties while on the business owner’s premises. 
BACKGROUND 
Under well settled principles, we review the record 
applying the same standard the trial court must adopt in 
reviewing a motion for summary judgment, accepting as true 
“those inferences from the facts that are most favorable to the 
nonmoving party, unless the inferences are forced, strained, or 
contrary to reason.”  Dickerson v. Fatehi, 253 Va. 324, 327, 484 
S.E.2d 880, 882 (1997); see also Carson v. LeBlanc, 245 Va. 135, 
139-40, 427 S.E.2d 189, 192 (1993). 
On November 1, 1997, Michael R. Dudas, a business invitee, 
was playing golf on a public 18-hole golf course owned and 
operated by Glenwood Golf Club, Inc.  While playing near the 
green of the 13th hole, Dudas and a companion were confronted by 
two unknown male trespassers and robbed at gunpoint.  One of the 
assailants shot Dudas in the leg. 
In an amended motion for judgment filed January 25, 1999, 
Dudas alleges that in the month preceding this robbery and 
assault there had been “at least two robberies of business 
invitees, one with gunfire, [at] Glenwood Golf Club at the 7th 
and 13th holes” and that the assailants responsible for these 
two incidents had not been apprehended.  The amended motion for 
judgment contained three counts of negligence against Glenwood 
Golf Club. 
In Count One, Dudas alleges that Glenwood Golf Club 
“negligently operated, managed, maintained, and repaired [its 
premises], thus rendering the premises unsafe by affording [the] 
assailants access and opportunity to harm Glenwood’s invitees.”  
In Count Two, Dudas alleges that Glenwood Golf Club owed him, as 
its invitee, a duty of care to warn him of the danger of a 
criminal assault on its premises.  In Count Three, he alleges 
that Glenwood Golf Club owed him a duty to protect him from such 
assaults.  In a further count, Dudas alleges that in failing to 
exercise these duties of care, Glenwood “acted consciously in 
disregard of plaintiff’s rights and/or with reckless 
indifference to the consequences” of its actions.  Dudas sought 
 
2
$2,000,000 in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive 
damages. 
On February 25, 2000 and after more than a year of 
discovery, Glenwood Golf Club filed a motion for summary 
judgment and supporting brief contending that there were no 
disputed material facts.  For purposes of resolving that motion, 
the parties agreed that two armed robberies and one attempted 
robbery of business invitees had occurred on the premises of 
Glenwood Golf Club during October 1997 and that another such 
robbery had occurred in May 1996.  Relying on Wright v. Webb, 
234 Va. 527, 533, 362 S.E.2d 919, 922 (1987), Glenwood Golf Club 
contended that it owed Dudas, as its invitee, no duty to warn or 
protect him from the danger of being shot by a robber on its 
premises in the absence of knowledge that such a criminal 
assault was occurring or about to occur.  In a responding brief, 
Dudas contended that the prior criminal assaults on Glenwood 
Golf Club’s premises were sufficient to place it on notice that 
it owed a duty of care to warn or protect its invitees from 
similar criminal assaults. 
Following oral argument in which the parties adhered to the 
positions stated in their briefs, the trial court issued an 
opinion letter dated March 7, 2000.  The trial court noted that 
in Wright, this Court held that “a business invitor, whose 
method of business does not attract or provide a climate for 
 
3
assaultive crimes, does not have a duty to take measures to 
protect an invitee against criminal assault unless he knows that 
criminal assaults against persons are occurring, or are about to 
occur, on the premises which indicate an imminent probability of 
harm to an invitee.”  234 Va. at 533, 362 S.E.2d at 922.  
Relying upon Wright, the trial court ruled that Dudas’ “claim 
fails because there is nothing in the evidence to suggest that 
the criminal acts [of] which [Dudas] was an unfortunate victim 
were occurring or were imminent and that [Glenwood Golf Club] 
knew of these circumstances.”  A final order awarding summary 
judgment to Glenwood Golf Club and incorporating the reasoning 
of the trial court’s opinion letter was entered March 27, 2000.  
We awarded Dudas this appeal. 
DISCUSSION 
The sole issue raised by Dudas on appeal is whether 
Glenwood Golf Club owed him a duty of care to warn or protect 
him against criminal assaults by unknown third parties while he 
was an invitee on its premises.  Whether such a duty of care is 
imposed upon Glenwood Golf Club is “a pure question of law.”  
Burns v. Johnson, 250 Va. 41, 45, 458 S.E.2d 448, 451 (1995).  
Thus, the question whether Glenwood Golf Club had a duty of care 
under the circumstances of this case was one for the trial court 
to consider and determine, and summary judgment would be proper 
only if the trial court correctly determined that no such duty 
 
4
exists.  See Acme Markets, Inc. v. Remschel, 181 Va. 171, 178, 
24 S.E.2d 430, 434 (1943) (“[t]he law determines the duty, and 
the jury, upon the evidence, determines whether the duty has 
been performed”). 
Glenwood Golf Club contends that the facts of this case are 
squarely on point with Wright.  In that case, we said that 
“[o]rdinarily, the owner or possessor of land is under no duty 
to protect invitees from assaults by third parties while the 
invitee is upon the premises . . . [unless] there is a special 
relationship between [the] possessor of land and his invitee 
giving rise to a duty to protect the invitee from such 
assaults.”  234 Va. at 530, 362 S.E.2d at 920-21.  We recognized 
that one such special relationship is that of business invitor 
and its business invitee.  However, we declined to find inherent 
in that bare relationship an absolute duty of the business 
invitor to protect its invitees from criminal assaults by 
unknown third parties on its premises.  We observed that: 
In ordinary circumstances, it would be difficult to 
anticipate when, where, and how a criminal might 
attack a business invitee.  Experience demonstrates 
that the most effective deterrent to criminal acts of 
violence is the posting of a security force in the 
area of potential assaults.  In most cases, that cost 
would be prohibitive.  Where invitor and invitee are 
both innocent victims of assaultive criminals, it is 
unfair to place that burden on the invitor. 
 
Id. at 531, 362 S.E.2d at 921.  Accordingly, we limited the duty 
owed by the business invitor to protect its invitee against 
 
5
criminal assaults to those instances where it “knows that 
criminal assaults against persons are occurring, or are about to 
occur, on the premises which indicate an imminent probability of 
harm to [its] invitee.”  (Emphasis added).  Id. at 533, 362 
S.E.2d at 922. 
Dudas contends, however, that the appropriate analysis to 
be applied in this case in determining whether he was owed any 
duty of care by Glenwood Golf Club with regard to criminal acts 
by unknown third parties does not involve consideration of 
“imminent probability of harm” as stated in Wright.  Rather, he 
contends that once the special relationship of business invitor 
and its business invitee is established, as it is here, then the 
only remaining consideration in the analysis of the business 
invitor’s potential liability is whether it was reasonably 
foreseeable that the invitee would be injured by a criminal 
assault committed by a third party.  Dudas relies primarily on 
A.H. v. Rockingham Publishing Co., 255 Va. 216, 495 S.E.2d 482 
(1998), to support this contention. 
The thrust of Dudas’ contention is that the prior criminal 
acts in Wright were not similar in nature to the act which 
resulted in the injury to the plaintiff in that case and, 
therefore, an imminent probability of harm to the plaintiff was 
necessary to establish liability on the business invitor.  
However, Dudas contends that where there are prior similar 
 
6
criminal attacks, the issue becomes whether the plaintiff’s 
injury was reasonably foreseeable.  To the extent Dudas’ 
contention is that A.H. modified our holding in Wright or 
established two distinct “tests” for determining whether a 
business invitor owes a duty of care to its business invitees 
with regard to the danger of harm from criminal assaults 
committed by an unknown third party on its premises, Dudas 
misreads A.H.  Our analysis in A.H. focused on the particular 
special relationship and the surrounding circumstances at issue 
there and did not modify our holding in Wright concerning the 
potential duty of care owed by a business invitor to its invitee 
with regard to criminal acts committed by third parties on its 
premises. 
We have consistently adhered to the rule that the owner or 
occupier of land ordinarily is under no duty to protect its 
invitee from a third party’s criminal act committed while the 
invitee is upon the premises.  Gupton v. Quicke, 247 Va. 362, 
363, 442 S.E.2d 658, 658 (1994); see also Burns, 250 Va. at 44, 
458 S.E.2d at 451.  Our decision in Wright fashioned a narrow 
exception to this general rule.  In applying that exception, 
careful analysis of particular factual patterns in subsequent 
cases must be used to avoid permitting the narrow exception to 
swallow the general rule.  Dudas’ contention in the present case 
would create such a result.  This is so because Dudas’ theory of 
 
7
liability is premised solely upon the foreseeability of the 
danger of injury to a business invitee. 
 
In that context, we have stressed that whether a duty of 
care arises from a special relationship between a business 
invitor and its invitee regarding a criminal assault by a third 
party committed on the premises so as to qualify as an exception 
to the general rule of nonliability involves a fact specific 
determination.  Thus, in Thompson v. Skate America, Inc., 261 
Va. ___, ___, ___ S.E.2d ___, ___ (2001)(decided today), we have 
recognized that when a business invitor has knowledge that a 
particular individual has a history of violent, criminal 
behavior while on its premises, and thereby poses an imminent 
probability of harm to an invitee, the business invitor has a 
duty of care to protect its other invitee from assault by that 
person. 
However, we are of opinion that the facts of this case do 
not satisfy the requirements of the narrow exception to the 
general rule adopted in Wright.  Dudas contends that the 
similarity and chronological proximity of the prior crimes in 
this case distinguish it from Wright.  We disagree.  In Wright, 
the plaintiff’s injury resulted from an assault committed during 
an apparent robbery by an unknown third party in the defendant’s 
motel parking lot.  The criminal activity that had occurred 
prior to this assault included a double murder in an adjacent 
 
8
parking lot three and a half years before the assault, a 
physical assault upon a female guest in a room of the motel 
almost a year before the assault, and frequent recent larcenies 
from motel rooms and vehicles in the parking lot.  234 Va. at 
529-30, 362 S.E.2d at 920.  Regardless whether this previous 
criminal activity was sufficient to make the subsequent assault 
on the plaintiff reasonably foreseeable, we narrowed the 
appropriate inquiry to whether this previous criminal activity 
was sufficient to “lead a reasonable person . . . to conclude 
that there was an imminent danger of criminal assault” to the 
plaintiff.  Id. at 533, 362 S.E.2d at 922. 
The fact that the prior criminal acts on the premises of 
Glenwood Golf Club were of the same nature as the criminal act 
that caused Dudas’ injury does not change our analysis with 
respect to the narrow exception adopted in Wright.  Prior to the 
two robberies and one attempted robbery, it had been over a year 
since there had been any similar criminal activity on Glenwood 
Golf Club’s premises.  Thus, just as in Wright, the level of 
criminal activity would not have led a reasonable business owner 
to conclude that its invitees were in imminent danger of 
criminal assault, and there was certainly nothing to indicate 
that Dudas in particular was in such danger. 
Moreover, in addition to the question of imminent danger of 
injury from criminal assault by an unknown third party, we must 
 
9
also consider “the magnitude of the burden of guarding against 
[harm to the plaintiff] and the consequences of placing that 
burden on [the business owner]” before imposing a duty to 
protect its invitees.  Id. at 531, 362 S.E.2d at 921.  It is in 
that context that we have observed that “[e]xperience 
demonstrates that the most effective deterrent to criminal acts 
of violence is the posting of a security force in the area of 
potential assaults.  In most cases, that cost would be 
prohibitive.”  Id.  Certainly, in the case of an 18-hole golf 
course, which is necessarily an extensive and open tract of 
land, generally having at many points uncontrolled access from 
other property and public ways, the cost of guarding against 
occasional criminal trespassers would be unduly great.  Thus, 
because the facts do not establish that there was an imminent 
probability of harm to Dudas from a criminal assault by an 
unknown third party and it would have been unduly burdensome to 
require Glenwood Golf Club to post a security force for his 
protection, we hold that Glenwood Golf Club owed no duty to 
protect Dudas from the danger of injury from such an assault. 
Similarly, we hold that under the facts of this case 
Glenwood Golf Club had no duty to warn Dudas of the potential 
danger of criminal assaults by third parties.  Glenwood Golf 
Club was not an insurer of Dudas’ safety.  In our view, to 
require a business owner who, through no fault of its own, has 
 
10
been victimized by assaultive criminals coming onto its 
property, to thereafter give warnings of the remote but 
potential danger of injury from the acts of such criminals would 
unfairly burden that business owner in light of the potential 
harm such warnings could do to its reputation and the loss of 
its trade which would inevitably result. 
For these reasons, we hold that the trial court did not err 
in awarding summary judgment to Glenwood Golf Club.  
Accordingly, the judgment of the trial court will be affirmed. 
Affirmed. 
 
11