Case Title: Seibert v. Vic Regnier Builders, Inc.

Citation: 253 Kan. 540, 856 P.2d 1332

Docket Number: 68,595

State: kansas

Court: Kansas Supreme Court

Date: 1993-07-30T00:00:00Z

Document:
253 Kan. 540 (1993)
856 P.2d 1332
BETSY SEIBERT, Appellant,
v.
VIC REGNIER BUILDERS, INC., Appellee.
No. 68,595

Supreme Court of Kansas.
Opinion filed July 30, 1993.
Theodore C. Beckett III, of Beckett, Lolli, Bartunek & Beckett, of Kansas City, Missouri, argued the cause, and Eric C. Sexton, of the same firm, was with him on the briefs for appellant.
David W. Hauber, of Boddington & Brown, Chtd., of Kansas City, argued the cause and was on the brief for appellee.
*541 The opinion of the court was delivered by
McFARLAND, J.:
This is a premises liability action brought by a woman who was shot in the parking lot of a shopping center in an armed robbery by an unknown assailant. Liability is sought to be imposed upon the owner of the shopping center on the basis of negligence in not providing security for the area. The district court, utilizing the "prior similar incidents" rule of foreseeability, entered summary judgment in favor of the defendant. The plaintiff appeals therefrom.
Preliminarily, some rules relating to the granting of summary judgment in a negligence action need to be set forth. In Gooch v. Bethel A.M.E. Church, 246 Kan. 663, 668, 792 P.2d 993 (1990), we stated:
There are controverted facts relative to whether plaintiff Betsy Seibert had the legal status of a licensee or business invitee at the time she was injured. For purposes of ruling on the defendant's summary judgment motion, the district court, appropriately, held Ms. Seibert to be a business invitee. We shall do the same.
On April 2, 1989, Ms. Seibert was a passenger in an automobile owned and driven by her friend Michelle Brandes. At about 3:00 p.m., they drove to the Ranch Mart Shopping Center and parked in the subterranean parking garage. They got out of the automobile and reached into the back to retrieve their purses from the "cubby" area of the Corvette. Suddenly, each had an assailant. Where the two robbers had been prior to assaulting the women *542 is unknown. Ms. Seibert had her handbag and a cola can in her hands. When confronted, Ms. Seibert screamed and either dropped or threw the can of cola at her assailant, who then shot her in the head. The robbers fled.
Ms. Seibert brought this action against Vic Regnier Builders, Inc., the owner of Ranch Mart, Inc., alleging it was negligent in not providing security for its patrons when the assault upon her was foreseeable. Specifically, she alleged that by virtue of past criminal activity in the shopping center's parking areas plus the nature of the underground parking area, including dim lighting by virtue of numerous burned-out fluorescent tubes, the defendant owed a duty to her as a business invitee to provide security. The shopping center had no security for its patrons  no warning signs, video surveillance, or security guards. The plaintiff offered expert testimony that the security, including the lighting, was inadequate and had appropriate security measures been in place, the attack upon her would probably not have occurred.
No evidence of prior crimes in the underground parking area was offered or suggested. There was sketchy evidence of crimes occurring in above-ground areas of the parking lot, as follows: (1) Prior to 1986, a car window was broken and personal property taken from the vehicle; (2) in 1986, an armed robbery occurred (details unknown); (3) in 1988, a strong-armed robbery attempt was interrupted when witnesses intervened, and a second armed robbery was thwarted when the victim resisted.
In granting summary judgment to the defendant premises owner, the district court stated:
The plaintiff contends that under the "prior similar incidents" rule utilized by the district court, the court erred in holding that such prior incidents were insufficient to establish a duty owed. Alternatively, plaintiff contends the court erred in not applying the broader "totality of the circumstances" rule. The two rules are different methods for determining the foreseeability requirement of whether or not there is a duty owed by the premises owner to the customer injured by the criminal conduct of a third party.
In 62A Am.Jur.2d, Premises Liability § 513, p. 69, it is stated:
*544 The difference between the two methods of determining foreseeability is stated in 62A Am.Jur.2d, Premises Liability § 520, p. 77, as follows:
The above reference to the Restatement is to Restatement (Second) of Torts § 344 (1965), which states:
Comment f to § 344 explains that although the owner of the property is not an insurer of the land, there are certain circumstances in which liability is warranted:
The plaintiff acknowledges there are no Kansas cases precisely on point. She likens the situation herein to those in Gould v. Taco Bell, 239 Kan. 564, 722 P.2d 511 (1986), and the earlier Kimple v. Foster, 205 Kan. 415, 469 P.2d 281 (1970). There are some significant distinctions between the Gould/Kimple cases and the factual situation before us. In both Gould and Kimple the criminal assaults occurred among fellow patrons of a restaurant and tavern, respectively. Explosive confrontational situations developed inside the business premises. The proprietors neither intervened nor called the police.
In Gould, we stated:
In the case before us, the attack upon the plaintiff did not occur inside the business premises under the noses, so to speak, of the proprietors. The attack occurred in a parking lot. Neither the premises owner nor any of its employees were aware of the presence of the plaintiff or her attackers or that an attack was occurring. Neither failure to intervene nor to summon police is the basis of liability asserted herein, as was true in the Gould and Kimple cases. Rather, the liability sought to be imposed herein is predicated upon the frequency and severity of prior attacks against different patrons by presumably different attackers at different times and in different areas of the parking lot, plus the totality of the circumstances making the attack upon the plaintiff or some other business invitee foreseeable to the defendant, who then had a duty to take appropriate security action to prevent or make less likely the same from occurring.
Negligence exists where there is a duty owed by one person to another and a breach of that duty occurs. Further, if recovery is to be had for such negligence, the injured party must show: (1) a causal connection between the duty breached and the injury received; and (2) he or she was damaged by the negligence. Whether a duty exists is a question of law. Whether the duty *548 has been breached is a question of fact. Durflinger v. Artiles, 234 Kan. 484, 488, 673 P.2d 86 (1983).
In determining whether there is a duty owed, we start with two general rules. The owner of a business is not the insurer of the safety of its patrons or customers. The owner ordinarily has no liability for injuries inflicted upon patrons or customers by the criminal acts of third parties in the business' parking lot, as the owner has no duty to provide security. Such a duty may arise, however, where circumstances exist from which the owner could reasonably foresee that its customers have a risk of peril above and beyond the ordinary and that appropriate security measures should be taken. In determining foreseeability, should the rule be limited to prior similar acts or include the totality of the circumstances? An annotation on the liability of a for-pay parking lot for injuries to its customers which were the result of criminal attacks upon its customers appears in 49 A.L.R.4th 1257. The annotation discusses both methods of determining foreseeability.
An annotation on a shopping mall owner's liability for criminal attack in a mall's free parking areas appears at 93 A.L.R.3d 999.
Our sister state of Missouri has had occasion to consider the issue. Madden v. C & K Barbecue Carryout, Inc., 758 S.W.2d 59 (Mo. 1988), consisted of two cases consolidated for appeal  Madden and Decker v. Gramex Corporation. Plaintiff Madden was kidnapped in the defendant's parking lot in St. Louis and driven to another location where she was sexually assaulted. In Decker, Mr. and Mrs. Decker were kidnapped from the defendants' St. Louis County parking lot. Thereafter Mrs. Decker was sexually assaulted and both were murdered. Liability was claimed in both cases under the prior similar incidents standard of foreseeability. Summary judgment was entered on behalf of the defendant in Decker, and Madden was dismissed for failure to state a claim. The Missouri Supreme Court reversed the district court decisions in both cases. In so doing, Missouri recognized a cause of action wherein owners of businesses could be held liable for crimes in their parking lots where the same are foreseeable by virtue of numerous instances of prior criminal conduct occurring therein.
*549 Perhaps the most commonly cited case accepting the totality of circumstances rule of foreseeability is Isaacs v. Huntington Memorial Hospital, 38 Cal. 3d 112, 211 Cal. Rptr. 356, 695 P.2d 653 (1985). The scene of the crime was the physicians' parking lot at a major hospital located in what was stated to be a high crime area. At the nearby emergency room parking area, numerous crimes had occurred, and security guards were employed therein. The emergency department was open 24 hours a day and attracted large numbers of drunks, drug addicts, and assorted violent criminal types. Dr. Isaacs was an anesthesiologist who was shot by an assailant near his car in the physicians' parking lot. There had been no prior criminal incidents in this parking lot. The California Supreme Court rejected the prior similar incidents rule and embraced the totality of the circumstances test for foreseeability. In essence, the California court held that this particular parking lot could not be isolated and foreseeability based just upon events therein. The lot was in a high crime area and adjacent to the emergency room parking lot where violent behavior was known to be a common occurrence requiring security. 38 Cal. 3d  at 130-31.
We believe that totality of the circumstances is the better reasoned basis for determining foreseeability. The circumstances to be considered must, however, have a direct relationship to the harm incurred in regard to foreseeability. Prior incidents remain perhaps the most significant factor, but the precise area of the parking lot is not the only area which must be considered. If the parking lot is located in a known high crime area, that factor should be considered. For instance, one should not be able to open an all-night, poorly lit parking lot in a dangerous high crime area of an inner city with no security and have no legal foreseeability until after a substantial number of one's own patrons have fallen victim to violent crimes. Criminal activity in such circumstances is not only foreseeable but virtually inevitable.
It is a sad commentary on our times that there is probably no shopping center parking lot that is likely to be crime free. Thefts of vehicles and from vehicles do occur, as well as purse snatches, etc. It is only where the frequency and severity of criminal conduct substantially exceed the norm or where the totality of the circumstances indicates the risk is foreseeably high that a duty *550 should be placed upon the owner of the premises to provide security. The duty to provide security is determined under the reasonable person standard. Thus, the duty to provide security and the level of such security must be reasonable  that includes the economic feasibility of the level of security. In some instances, the installation of better lighting or a fence or cutting down shrubbery might be cost effective and yet greatly reduce the risk to customers. We note with concern the plaintiff's expert's references to the security not being adequate or being inadequate. This is a poor choice of terms. Presumably, the fact that the attack on the plaintiff occurred shows that the security was "inadequate." Had it been "adequate" the attack would not have occurred. The shopping center owner is not under a duty to provide such security as will prevent attacks on the patrons  such a duty would make the owner the insurer of his patrons' safety. Rather, if because of the totality of the circumstances the owner has a duty to take security precautions by virtue of the foreseeability of criminal conduct, such security measures must also be reasonable under the totality of the circumstances. Such an approach is consistent with the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 344 (1965).
The district court limited its consideration to specific similar incidents. The court expressly did not consider the claims as to the lighting deficiencies and other characteristics of the parking area in question. Further, the court did not make any findings as to whether the premises were or were not in a high crime area, although inferentially, by its comment relative to the Indian Springs Shopping Center, the question was answered in the negative. We must reverse and remand the case for reconsideration under the totality of the circumstances test for foreseeability. The circumstances to be considered must relate specifically to the foreseeability of the attack on the plaintiff. We note that under the facts presented, it is unknown where plaintiff's and her friend's assailants were immediately prior to the attack. Thus, the district court will have to consider the claims of deficient lighting in the context of whether this factor played any role in increasing the risk of this attack upon the plaintiff.
*551 The summary judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded for reconsideration under the totality of the circumstances test of foreseeability.