Title: Taboada v. Daly Seven, Inc.

State: virginia

Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court

Document:

Present:  All the Justices 
 
RYAN TABOADA 
 
OPINION BY 
v.  Record No. 051094 
JUSTICE LAWRENCE L. KOONTZ, JR. 
 
March 3, 2006 
DALY SEVEN, INC. 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF ROANOKE 
Clifford R. Weckstein, Judge 
 
In this appeal, we consider whether the trial court erred 
in sustaining demurrers to a motion for judgment and an amended 
motion for judgment against an innkeeper for injuries sustained 
by a guest as the result of a criminal assault by a third party 
while on the innkeeper’s property.  In so doing, we consider as 
an issue of first impression what duty of care is owed by an 
innkeeper to a guest for injuries caused by a third party. 
BACKGROUND 
The principles of appellate review that guide our 
consideration of this appeal are well-settled.  “A demurrer 
admits the truth of the facts contained in the pleading to which 
it is addressed, as well as any facts that may be reasonably and 
fairly implied and inferred from those allegations.  A demurrer 
does not, however, admit the correctness of the pleader’s 
conclusions of law.”  Yuzefovsky v. St. John’s Wood Apts., 261 
Va. 97, 102, 540 S.E.2d 134, 136-37 (2001) (internal citation 
omitted).  Accordingly, we will consider the facts stated, and 
those reasonably and fairly implied and inferred, in the two 
motions for judgment in this case in a light most favorable to 
the plaintiff, but we will review the sufficiency of the legal 
conclusions ascribed to those facts de novo.1  Id.  Applying this 
standard, the relevant facts and legal conclusions in the 
plaintiff’s motions for judgment are as follows. 
Daly Seven, Inc. owns and operates hotels in Virginia 
including a Holiday Inn Express located in downtown Roanoke.  At 
approximately 2 a.m. on March 27, 2003, Ryan Taboada and his 
family arrived at the Holiday Inn Express seeking lodging for 
the night.  Taboada had selected the hotel relying, in part, 
upon the hotel’s representation that the hotel was a “safe, 
secure, and reliable place to lodge.”  Taboada registered as a 
guest at the hotel and was assigned a room. 
Taboada then returned to his vehicle in the hotel’s parking 
lot where his wife and two children were waiting and began to 
unload the family’s luggage.  Derrick W. Smith, who was not a 
guest at the hotel, approached Taboada and demanded money from 
                     
1 As will be more fully related hereafter, this case 
involves appeals from the trial court’s orders sustaining two 
demurrers:  the first to an original motion for judgment filed 
by a guest against the owner of a hotel in which statutory and 
common law negligence claims were asserted and a subsequent one 
to an amended motion for judgment in which only the common law 
claim was asserted.  In light of this circumstance, our 
references to the factual allegations are to be understood in 
the context of the pertinent motion for judgment.  See Fuste v. 
Riverside Healthcare Ass’n., 265 Va. 127, 129-30, 575 S.E.2d 
858, 860 (2003). 
 
2
him.  Smith then, immediately and without provocation, began to 
fire a weapon at Taboada.  Taboada was wounded eight times, 
suffering severe bodily injuries.  Smith took a wristwatch from 
Taboada’s seven-year-old son and stole the family’s vehicle; 
Taboada’s infant daughter was still in her car seat in the 
vehicle at the time.  Police apprehended Smith, recovered the 
vehicle, and rescued the infant, who was not physically harmed. 
On September 24, 2003, Taboada filed his original motion 
for judgment in the Circuit Court of the City of Roanoke (trial 
court) against Daly Seven seeking $3,000,000 in compensatory 
damages for the injuries he sustained as the result of Smith’s 
criminal act.  In addition to a common law negligence claim, 
Taboada asserted a statutory claim against Daly Seven based on 
the duties imposed on innkeepers by Code § 35.1-28.  The trial 
court sustained Daly Seven’s demurrer to both claims.  With 
respect to the statutory claim, the trial court ruled that Code 
§ 35.1-28(E) “unmistakably proclaims that the duties arising 
[under the statute] have no application in personal injury 
cases.”  Accordingly, while granting Taboada leave to file an 
amended motion for judgment with respect to the common law 
claim, the trial court dismissed the statutory claim with 
prejudice and without leave to amend. 
On September 21, 2004, Taboada filed an amended motion for 
judgment in which he again asserted his common law negligence 
 
3
claim against Daly Seven premised upon the innkeeper’s breach of 
a duty of care owed to Taboada as a guest.  Taboada expanded 
upon his factual allegations from the original motion for 
judgment and increased his claim for compensatory damages to 
$5,000,000. 
Taboada alleged that Daly Seven had misrepresented that the 
Holiday Inn Express was located in a “safe” area when, in fact, 
Daly Seven “knew that the location of the Holiday Inn Express 
was in a high crime area, that it attracted assaultive crimes, 
that criminal assaults against employees and guests were 
occurring, that criminal assaults would continue to occur, and 
that the business provided a known target for repeat criminal 
activity including assaultive crimes on employees and guests.” 
In support of this allegation, Taboada alleged that “[f]rom 
January 1, 2000 through March 26, 2003, [Daly Seven] regularly 
called the Roanoke City Police Department on at least 96 
occasions to report the presence of trespassers who refused to 
leave the premises, the presence of suspicious persons on the 
premises, larcenies, disorderly persons, suspicious 
circumstances, and suspected drug offenses.  Included in such 
reports by [Daly Seven] were reports of robberies, malicious 
woundings, shootings, and other such criminally assaultive acts 
requiring the attention of the Roanoke City Police Department.”  
Taboada alleged that these facts “specifically placed [Daly 
 
4
Seven] on notice that uninvited persons regularly came upon the 
parking lot and property of [Daly Seven] and created a risk of 
imminent harm to the person of the employees of [Daly Seven] and 
to the person of its guests.” 
Taboada further alleged that Daly Seven “was informed by 
the Roanoke City Police Department and by others that its guests 
were at a specific imminent risk for harm to their persons from 
uninvited persons coming into or upon its property and that to 
avoid this imminent risk [Daly Seven] needed to retain the 
services of uniformed security guards.”  Taboada alleged that 
Daly Seven had at one time employed uniformed security guards to 
patrol the hotel and its parking lot during the overnight hours, 
but that it had discontinued this practice “in favor of saving 
expenses.” 
Taboada premised Daly Seven’s liability for his injuries on 
the legal theory that Daly Seven owed its guests a “standard of 
care under the circumstances in which [Daly Seven] operated the 
Holiday Inn Express.”  According to Taboada, that standard of 
care 
required [Daly Seven] to have uniformed security 
guards in place at least between the hours of 10:00 
p.m. and 4:00 a.m. seven (7) days a week for the 
purpose of protecting its guests from the known risk 
of imminent harm from assaults from third persons.  In 
addition, the standard of care required [Daly Seven] 
to have in place video cameras clearly identifying 
unusual or criminal activity which might occur in 
close proximity to the main entrance to its business 
 
5
so that it could provide assistance to guests who 
intended to register or who had just completed 
registration during the hours between 10:00 p.m. and 
4:00 a.m.  The requirement for video cameras was in 
direct response to the known risk that guests were in 
imminent danger of assaults in parking and attempting 
to enter the premises for purposes of checking in or 
for guests who had checked in and were returning from 
the lobby to their vehicles in order to travel to 
their rooms. 
 
Taboada alleged that had Daly Seven continued to employ 
uniformed security guards, the guards “would have been able to 
see the assailant prior to the time of the assault [and] would 
have been able to stop the assailant before the attack and 
direct him to leave the premises or, in the alternative, would 
have been able to warn [Taboada] of the approach of the 
assailant in time for [Taboada] to protect himself and his 
family.”  Taboada further contended that use of a security 
camera would have afforded similar protection. 
On October 13, 2004, Daly Seven filed a demurrer to 
Taboada’s amended motion for judgment.  Daly Seven asserted that 
it “did not have a duty to protect [Taboada] from the 
intentional criminal assault of a non-employee under the 
allegations” of the amended motion for judgment.  Citing 
Thompson v. Skate America, Inc., 261 Va. 121, 129, 540 S.E.2d 
123, 127 (2001), Daly Seven asserted that the amended motion for 
judgment failed to state a common law negligence claim against 
it because Taboada failed to allege that Daly Seven “knew that 
 
6
criminal assaults against persons [were] occurring or about to 
occur on the premises which indicate[d] an imminent probability 
of harm and that such knowledge constituted notice of a specific 
danger just prior to the assault.”  (Internal quotation marks 
omitted). 
On February 24, 2005, the trial court entered a final order 
sustaining Daly Seven’s demurrer and dismissing the amended 
motion for judgment with prejudice, adopting by reference the 
reasons stated in an opinion letter dated February 13, 2005.  In 
that opinion letter, the trial court, relying on Yuzefovsky, 
opined that in “a suit against the owner of the property where 
[a criminal] attack occurred . . . the plaintiff [must] set 
forth facts from which the trier of fact could find that the 
innkeeper knew ‘that criminal assaults against persons [were] 
occurring, or [were] about to occur, on the premises which 
indicate[d] an imminent probability of harm.’ ”  Yuzefovsky, 261 
Va. at 109, 540 S.E.2d at 141.  The trial court ruled that 
Taboada had failed to “set forth facts from which [the trial 
court could] at least infer that the innkeeper should have 
foreseen the type of criminal activity of which Taboada was a 
victim.”  Accordingly, the trial court determined that Taboada 
 
7
had failed to adequately plead facts in support of his common 
law claim of negligence.2
DISCUSSION 
Although raised as the last of his four assignments of 
error, we first address Taboada’s assertion that the trial court 
erred in sustaining the demurrer to the statutory claim under 
Code § 35.1-28 and dismissing that claim with prejudice.  We do 
so, before addressing the remaining assignments of error 
directed to Taboada’s common law claim, in order to determine 
whether the enactment of this statute changed or altered the 
common law with respect to a duty of care owed by an innkeeper 
to a guest for injuries caused by the intentional acts of third 
parties. 
The duty of care owed by an innkeeper “to take reasonable 
precautions to protect the persons and property of [his] guests” 
is defined, and the innkeeper’s liability is limited, by Code 
§ 35.1-28.  In summary, the duties prescribed and the limits of 
monetary loss provided for in that statute relate to the 
provision of adequate locks on doors and windows, and are 
                     
2 In the February 13, 2005 opinion letter, the trial court 
also adopted by reference its prior ruling sustaining the 
demurrer to Taboada’s statutory claim under Code § 35.1-28 in 
the original motion for judgment, for which leave to amend had 
not been granted.  Thus, the final order addressed both claims, 
and Taboada’s objection to that order preserved both issues for 
appeal. 
 
8
principally directed to the prevention of the loss of personal 
property of the guest.  See Code § 35.1-28(B)-(D).  However, as 
relevant to the issues raised in this appeal, Code § 35.1-28(E) 
makes plain that the duties prescribed, and the limitation of 
liability afforded, by the statute do not “change or alter the 
principles of law concerning a hotel’s liability to a guest 
. . . for personal injury.”  Thus, with respect to the specific 
facts of this case, the duty of care owed to Taboada by Daly 
Seven with respect to protecting him from injury as the result 
of a criminal assault by a third party is not governed by the 
provisions of the statute, but remains governed by the common 
law.  See Couplin v. Payne, 270 Va. 129, 136, 613 S.E.2d 592, 
595 (2005); Boyd v. Commonwealth, 236 Va. 346, 349, 374 S.E.2d 
301, 302 (1988).  Accordingly, we hold that the trial court’s 
judgment sustaining Daly Seven’s demurrer to Taboada’s statutory 
claim under Code § 35.1-28 was correct.3
                     
3 We recognize that in Crosswhite v. Shelby Operating Corp., 
182 Va. 713, 716, 30 S.E.2d 673, 674 (1944), an innkeeper-guest 
liability case arising from a personal injury alleged to have 
been caused by a defective condition of the hotel property, we 
said, referring to former Code § 15-1602, that “[t]he Code 
itself . . . tells us what is required of innkeepers.”  We then 
used the standard of care prescribed by that Code section in 
determining that the trial court had improperly sustained a 
demurrer to the motion for judgment.  Former Code § 15-1602 
corresponds in all relevant parts to subsection A of Code 
§ 35.1-28.  However, at the time Crosswhite was decided, the 
Code contained no provision corresponding to Code § 35.1-28(E), 
which was added to the Code in 1981 as part of the enactment of 
 
9
We turn now to consider Taboada’s three remaining 
assignments of error.  These all address the trial court’s 
sustaining of the demurrers to his common law claim of 
negligence.  However, because Taboada was granted leave by the 
trial court to file the amended motion for judgment in which he 
expanded the allegations in support of his common law claim, we 
will confine our discussion of this issue to the trial court’s 
judgment sustaining the demurrer to Taboada’s amended motion for 
judgment.  Cf. Doe v. Zwelling, 270 Va. 594, 596, 620 S.E.2d 
750, 751 (2005); Fuste v. Riverside Healthcare Assoc., 265 Va. 
127, 129-30, 575 S.E.2d 858, 860 (2003). 
The general rule in Virginia is that there is no common law 
duty for an owner or occupier of land either to warn or to 
protect an invitee on his property from the criminal act of a 
third party.  Yuzefovsky, 261 Va. at 106, 540 S.E.2d at 139.  
“[T]here are narrow exceptions to this rule,” but the 
application of those exceptions “is always fact specific and, 
thus, not amenable to a bright-line rule for resolution.”  Id.  
However, before an exception to the general rule can apply so as 
                                                                  
Title 35.1.  See 1981 Va. Acts ch. 468.  Accordingly, to the 
extent that Crosswhite can be read to stand for the proposition 
that an innkeeper’s duty of care to protect a guest from 
personal injury arises only from the statute, the subsequent 
legislative amendment of the successor statute has clarified 
that it did not abrogate the duty or the liability imposed on 
innkeepers for personal injuries to guests by the common law. 
 
10
to impose a potential duty upon the owner of land, the facts 
“must establish that there is a special relationship, either 
between the [owner of land] and the [invitee] or between the 
third party criminal actor and the [owner of land].”  Id. at 
107, 540 S.E.2d at 139.  The relationship between innkeeper and 
guest has long been recognized by the common law as constituting 
just such a special relationship.4  See, e.g., Yuzefovsky, 261 
Va. at 108, 540 S.E.2d at 140; Skate America, 261 Va. at 129, 
540 S.E.2d at 127; Holles v. Sunrise Terrace, Inc., 257 Va. 131, 
136, 509 S.E.2d 494, 497-98 (1999); A.H. v. Rockingham 
                     
4 The special legal relationship between innkeepers and 
guests 
 
“had its origin in the feudal conditions which were 
the outgrowth of the Middle Ages.  In those days there 
was little safety outside of castles and fortified 
towns for the wayfaring traveler, who, exposed on his 
journey to the depredations of bandits and brigands, 
had little protection when he sought at night 
temporary refuge at the wayside inns, established and 
conducted for his entertainment and convenience.  
Exposed as he was to robbery and violence, he was 
compelled to repose confidence, when stopping on his 
pilgrimages over night, in [proprietors] who were not 
exempt from temptation; and hence there grew up the 
salutary principles that a host owed to his guest the 
duty, not only of hospitality, but also of 
protection.” 
 
Kveragas v. Scottish Inns, Inc., 733 F.2d 409, 412 (6th Cir. 
1984) (quoting Crapo v. Rockwell, 94 N.Y.S. 1122 (N.Y.Sup. Ct. 
1905)).  It continues to be recognized as a special one because 
“[a]lthough castles and fortified towns are no longer a part of 
our landscape, bandits and brigands remain” as hazards to those 
who travel.  Id.
 
11
Publishing Co., 255 Va. 216, 220, 495 S.E.2d 482, 485 (1998); 
Klingbeil Management Group Co. v. Vito, 233 Va. 445, 448, 357 
S.E.2d 200, 201 (1987). 
The establishment of the necessary special relationship is 
the threshold requirement for the application of an exception to 
the general rule of non-liability in these cases.  Even though 
the necessary special relationship is established so as to 
create a potential duty on the defendant to protect or warn the 
plaintiff against criminal conduct of a third party, there is no 
liability when the defendant neither knows of the danger of an 
injury to a plaintiff from the criminal conduct of a third party 
nor has reason to foresee that danger.  In short, the special 
relationship does not make the defendant an insurer of the 
plaintiff’s safety.  See Rockingham, 255 Va. at 220-21, 495 
S.E.2d at 485. 
Although we have previously addressed questions of 
liability for injuries caused by third parties involving 
property owners who were innkeepers, the plaintiffs in those 
cases were regular business invitees on the property and not 
guests of the innkeepers.  See, e.g., Wright v. Webb, 234 Va. 
527, 529, 362 S.E.2d 919, 920 (1987) (patron of adjoining 
business using parking on innkeeper’s property by permission); 
Alpaugh v. Wolverton, 184 Va. 943, 945, 36 S.E.2d 906, 907 
(1946) (patron of restaurant located in innkeeper’s property).  
 
12
In contrast, this case presents the opportunity to address 
directly the question of what duty of care an innkeeper owes to 
a guest as a result of that special relationship for injuries 
caused by the criminal conduct of a third party while on the 
innkeeper’s property. 
In the absence of prior case law in Virginia concerning the 
special relationship of innkeeper and guest with regard to 
injuries suffered by criminal acts of a third party, the trial 
court looked for guidance in our prior cases involving other 
special relationships between owners of land and either invitees 
or tenants.  The trial court principally chose Yuzefovsky, which 
involved the recognized special relationship of a landlord and 
tenant, for that guidance.  We are of opinion, however, that the 
nature of the landlord-tenant relationship is not congruent with 
the relationship of innkeeper and guest.  Moreover, in 
Yuzefovsky, we made clear that a higher duty of care may be 
imposed on the landlord in the special relationship of landlord-
tenant because of the specific circumstances of a particular 
case and not because of any unique aspect of the relationship 
recognized by the common law.  Such, generally, would be the 
case in any owner-invitee relationship in order to invoke an 
exception to the general rule of non-liability.  Yuzefovsky, 261 
Va. at 108, 540 S.E.2d at 140 (“we have consistently rejected 
the contention that the relationship of landlord and tenant, 
 
13
without more, constitutes a special relationship such that a 
duty of care may arise with regard to the conduct of a third 
party”); see also Klingbeil Management Group, 233 Va. at 448, 
357 S.E.2d at 201; Gulf Reston, Inc. v. Rogers, 215 Va. 155, 
158, 207 S.E.2d 841, 844 (1974). 
Additionally, we are unpersuaded by the analogy of the 
landlord-tenant relationship in this case because, unlike a 
landlord, an innkeeper is in direct and continued control of the 
property and usually maintains a presence on the property 
personally or through agents.  Thus, “while a lessee may be 
expected to do many things for his own protection,” an 
innkeeper’s guest is not as well situated to do so.  Crosswhite 
v. Shelby Operating Corp., 182 Va. 713, 715, 30 S.E.2d 673, 674 
(1944). 
In Kirby v. Moehlman, 182 Va. 876, 30 S.E.2d 548 (1944), a 
premises liability case involving an innkeeper and guest, we 
observed with regard to the common definition of negligence that 
“negligence is a relative term and the degree of care in fact 
should be greater or less commensurate with the circumstances.”  
Id. at 884, 30 S.E.2d at 551 (quoting Eastern Shore of Va. 
Agric. Assoc. v. LeCato, 151 Va. 614, 619, 144 S.E. 713, 714 
(1928)).  In a similar vein, we observed in Rockingham that even 
though the necessary special relationship is established with 
regard to a defendant’s potential duty to protect or warn a 
 
14
plaintiff against criminal conduct, the defendant is not held to 
be the insurer of the plaintiff’s safety but, rather, it must be 
established that “the danger of a plaintiff’s injury from such 
conduct was known to the defendant or was reasonably 
foreseeable.”  255 Va. at 220, 495 S.E.2d at 485. 
Consistent with these basic principles, we have long 
recognized that some special relationships impose an elevated 
duty of care on the property owner.  One such special 
relationship is that of common carrier and passenger.  See, 
e.g., Hines v. Garrett, 131 Va. 125, 137, 108 S.E. 690, 693-94 
(1921); Virginia R. & P. Co. v. McDemmick, 117 Va. 862, 870, 86 
S.E. 744, 747 (1915); see also Wright, 234 Va. at 532, 362 
S.E.2d at 922 (“a business invitee does not entrust his safety 
to a business invitor to the same extent a passenger does to a 
common carrier”).  Imposing an elevated duty of care upon the 
carrier is justified essentially because the passenger entrusts 
his safety to the carrier, who alone knows the condition of his 
vehicle and the dangers of the neighborhoods and environs 
through which the routes of travel may lie.  This imbalance of 
knowledge and control warrants imposition of a duty on a common 
carrier “to protect its passengers against violence or 
disorderly conduct on the part of its own agents, or other 
passengers and strangers, when such violence or misconduct may 
be reasonably expected and prevented, yet it is not liable to an 
 
15
action for damages when it is not shown that the company had 
notice of any acts which justified the expectation that a wrong 
would be committed.”  Virginia R. & P., 117 Va. at 870, 86 S.E. 
at 747; see also Norfolk & Western Ry. v. Birchfield, 105 Va. 
809, 822, 54 S.E. 879, 884 (1906). 
Like a passenger, the guest of an innkeeper entrusts his 
safety to the innkeeper and has little ability to control his 
environment.  The guest relies upon the innkeeper to make the 
property safe and the innkeeper’s knowledge of the neighborhood 
in taking the reasonably necessary precautions to do so.  In 
this regard, it is reasonable for the law to impose upon the 
innkeeper, as on the common carrier, a duty to take reasonable 
precautions to protect his guests against injury caused by the 
criminal conduct on the part of other guests or strangers, if 
the danger of injury by such conduct is known to the innkeeper 
or reasonably foreseeable.  Indeed, Code § 35.1-28(A) supports 
the conclusion that such a duty rests upon the innkeeper 
although under subsection (E) of that statute the parameters of 
that duty are a matter of common law. 
We have held that neither the innkeeper nor the common 
carrier is an absolute insurer of the guest’s or the passenger’s 
personal safety.  See, e.g., Crosswhite, 182 Va. at 716, 30 
S.E.2d at 674 (innkeeper); Norfolk & Western, 105 Va. at 821, 54 
S.E. at 883 (common carrier).  Nonetheless, we have held that 
 
16
the duty of care imposed on common carriers is an elevated duty 
that requires them “ ‘so far as human care and foresight can 
provide . . . to use the utmost care and diligence of very 
cautious persons; and they will be held liable for the slightest 
negligence which human care, skill and foresight could have 
foreseen and guarded against.’ ”  Norfolk & Western, 105 Va. at 
821, 54 S.E. at 883 (quoting Connell v. Chesapeake and Ohio Ry. 
Co., 93 Va. 44, 55, 24 S.E. 467, 468 (1896)).  Given the nature 
of the special relationship between an innkeeper and a guest, we 
hold that it imposes on the innkeeper the same potential 
elevated duty of “utmost care and diligence” to protect a guest 
from the danger of injury caused by the criminal conduct of a 
third person on the innkeeper’s property. 
Daly Seven contends that in Wright we extended the 
application of the duty of care previously applied in our common 
carrier cases “to business invitors in general” and, thus, that 
liability for negligence in the latter cases is imposed only 
when a business invitor “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.  Our decision in Wright 
involved a business invitee and not a guest of the hotel and for 
that reason alone is not authority for Daly Seven’s broad 
contention.  Moreover, in Wright we specifically noted that in a 
 
17
prior common carrier case, Hines v. Garrett, 131 Va. 125, 108 
S.E. 690 (1921), we had recognized “the high degree of care a 
common carrier owes its passengers and, therefore, a carrier’s 
duty to protect passengers from criminal acts of third persons 
which are reasonably foreseeable.”  Wright, 234 Va. at 532, 362 
S.E.2d at 922.  We went on to hold that Hines was inapplicable 
there “because a business invitee does not entrust his safety to 
a business invitor to the same extent a passenger does to a 
common carrier.”  Id.
In commenting on three other common carrier cases, we noted 
that implicit in all of them “is the element of notice of a 
specific danger just prior to the assault.”  Id. at 533, 362 
S.E.2d at 922.  We then stated that, in the context of a 
business owner and invitee special relationship, we will not 
impose liability for negligence based solely upon a background 
of previous criminal activity on the owner’s property.  Id.  We 
do not retreat from our holding in Wright; it is simply not 
applicable to the potential duty of care owed to a guest as a 
result of the special relationship of innkeeper and guest.  And, 
in the context of that special relationship, we equate “notice 
of a specific danger” with the concept of a reasonably 
foreseeable danger and not with the degree of knowledge of 
criminal assaults that indicate “an imminent probability” of 
harm.  See Skate America, 261 Va. at 130, 540 S.E.2d at 128 
 
18
(“imminent probability” of harm is a heightened degree of 
foreseeability). 
Having determined that the special relationship of 
innkeeper and guest recognized by the common law imposes a duty 
of “utmost care and diligence” to protect the guest against 
reasonably foreseeable injury from the criminal conduct of a 
third party, we now review the allegations of the amended motion 
for judgment to determine whether Taboada adequately pled a 
cause of action under that standard.  See Sanchez v. Medicorp 
Health Sys., 270 Va. 299, 303, 618 S.E.2d 331, 333 (2005). 
Limiting our consideration only to whether the facts 
alleged in the amended motion for judgment were sufficient to 
survive Daly Seven’s demurrer, we hold that those allegations, 
if proven, would be sufficient to permit a trier of fact to find 
that Daly Seven had breached its duty of care.  Taboada alleged 
that, over a three-year period immediately prior to the attack 
upon Taboada, Daly Seven’s employees had regularly contacted 
police 96 times to report criminal conduct including robberies, 
malicious woundings, shootings and other criminally assaultive 
acts.  As a result of these repeated incidents, Daly Seven had 
been advised by police that “its guests were at a specific 
imminent risk for harm to their persons from uninvited persons 
coming into or upon its property.”  These allegations are 
sufficient to support a reasonable conclusion that Daly Seven 
 
19
knew its property was located in a high crime area, and that 
Daly Seven was on notice that its guests were in danger of 
injury caused by similar criminal acts of third parties.  These 
allegations sufficiently support the further conclusion that the 
injury to Taboada from the criminal act of the third party was 
reasonably foreseeable. 
For these reasons, we hold that the trial court erred in 
sustaining Daly Seven’s demurrer to Taboada’s amended motion for 
judgment. 
CONCLUSION 
Accordingly, we will affirm the judgment of the trial court 
sustaining the demurrer to Taboada’s claim under Code § 35.1-28, 
reverse the judgment of the trial court sustaining the demurrer 
to Taboada’s common law claim, and remand the case for a trial 
on the merits of that claim. 
Affirmed in part, 
reversed in part, 
 
 
   and remanded. 
 
20