Title: Burns v. Johnson
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 941465
State: Virginia
Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court
Date: June 9, 1995

Present:  All the Justices 
 
 
JAMES P. BURNS, JR.,  
T/A SOUTH NORFOLK AMOCO 
 
OPINION BY JUSTICE A. CHRISTIAN COMPTON 
v.  Record No. 941465                      June 9, 1995 
 
TUWANNA E. JOHNSON 
 
 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF VIRGINIA BEACH 
 
Thomas S. Shadrick, Judge 
 
 
In this appeal, the sole question is whether an invitee 
presented sufficient evidence to establish a duty upon the owner 
of land to protect the invitee from the criminal act of a third 
person committed while the invitee was upon the premises.  We 
answer that question in the negative.  
 
Appellee Tuwanna E. Johnson filed a motion for judgment 
against appellant James P. Burns, Jr., trading as South Norfolk 
Amoco, seeking damages for negligently inflicted personal 
injuries sustained when she was abducted from defendant's 
premises and raped.  In a May 1994 trial, after the court 
overruled defendant's several motions to strike the plaintiff's 
evidence, a jury found for the plaintiff and assessed her damages 
at $175,000.  The trial court entered judgment on the verdict 
after overruling defendant's motion to set it aside.  We awarded 
defendant this appeal. 
 
According to settled appellate principles, we shall recite 
the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.  In the 
early morning hours of April 12, 1992, defendant's employee, 
Denise Breaker, was on duty alone as the cashier at a self-
service gasoline station situated on property owned by defendant 
 
 
 
 
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in the city of Chesapeake.  The employee was working in a locked, 
glass-enclosed booth equipped with bullet-proof glass, two 
telephones, a silent alarm, and three television monitors.  
Cigarettes, candy, and similar items were dispensed through a 
window; there was no store accessible to the public. 
 
Near 2:00 a.m. on the day in question, a man later 
identified as Nathaniel Bryant parked a vehicle at one of the gas 
pumps on the premises, walked to the window, and bought a pack of 
cigarettes.  Bryant, "a regular customer," was drunk and 
repeatedly asked to come "inside of the booth," saying to the 
employee, "I want to fuck you."  She refused and "requested him 
to leave quite a few times." 
 
After Bryant had remained on the premises for ten to fifteen 
minutes, the plaintiff, a young woman, drove a vehicle onto the 
premises and parked at another gas pump.  The plaintiff came to 
the window and paid two dollars for gasoline.  According to the 
plaintiff, Bryant was standing at the window, and she heard the 
employee say to him, "Sir, you have to leave now.  Sir, you have 
to leave now." 
 
The plaintiff returned to her vehicle to pump the fuel.  At 
this point, the employee left her position at the window, went to 
the rear of the booth because "she needed to do some inventory on 
her cigarettes or do something with the cigarettes," according to 
a statement the employee later gave to an investigating police 
officer. 
 
 
 
 
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As the plaintiff was pumping the gas, Bryant, a stranger to 
the plaintiff, asked if he could help.  She declined the offer 
and Bryant "walked away."  He immediately returned, "grabbed" her 
arm, and said he would shoot her if she screamed.  He then forced 
her into a field adjacent to defendant's premises and raped her. 
 
In the meantime, the employee returned to the front of the 
booth.  She observed through the windows and monitors that "the 
man and the woman" were "both gone."  She saw, however, that the 
two vehicles remained at the gas pumps, but she "had no reason to 
feel" the plaintiff "was in any danger."  She testified that 
customers often left their cars at the pumps while they used 
telephones or soft-drink machines available on the premises.  The 
owner testified that he had "no problem" with cars remaining on 
his premises during nighttime because "[i]t helps business" for a 
car to be "sitting there." 
 
A "few minutes" after the employee returned to the front of 
the booth, a young male friend of the plaintiff drove past the 
premises, recognized the plaintiff's parked vehicle, "pulled in 
the gas-station lot and started to look for her."  The friend 
called plaintiff's name and asked the employee if she had seen 
the plaintiff.  The employee responded, "She was just standing 
over there with a gentleman . . . a few minutes ago."  The 
employee said that "you better look around for her, because 
something is wrong." 
 
The friend unsuccessfully searched the premises, including 
 
 
 
 
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"behind the booth," for the plaintiff.  He asked the employee "to 
call the police," she "looked up," and gave him "an okay."  The 
friend then drove away. 
 
According to the plaintiff, the assailant sexually assaulted 
her in the field during a period of one and one-half hours.  
During that period, she "heard somebody call out something," but 
was too frightened to respond.  Finally, the assailant left her 
and drove away from the station.  In a few minutes, she drove 
from the premises without speaking to defendant's employee. 
 
The plaintiff contends that the trial court, in its rulings 
on the motions to strike and to set the verdict aside, correctly 
decided that a jury question was presented whether defendant's 
employee "breached her duty to [the plaintiff] when, with 
knowledge that a criminal assault was imminent, she failed to 
protect or warn [the plaintiff]."  We disagree. 
 
At the threshold, the plaintiff must establish a duty upon 
the defendant.  The law is settled on this subject.  Virginia 
adheres to the rule "that the owner or occupier of land 
ordinarily is under no duty to protect an invitee from a third 
person'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) (citing Wright v. Webb, 234 Va. 527, 530, 362 S.E.2d 
919, 920 (1987)). 
 
In Wright, we fashioned a narrow, limited exception to the 
general rule.  There, we held that an owner or occupier of land, 
 
 
 
 
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"whose method of business does not attract or provide a climate 
for 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.  This 
exception requires "notice of a specific danger just prior to the 
assault."  Id. 
 
In the present case, the evidence utterly fails to establish 
that defendant's employee knew a criminal assault was about to 
occur on the premises which indicated an imminent probability of 
harm to the plaintiff.  The employee was being harassed by a 
drunk, regular customer whom she knew and who was making comments 
personal to her.  She rejected his vile remarks and his requests 
to enter the booth.  There is no evidence that he displayed a 
firearm or that she was afraid for her own safety, or for the 
safety of any customer. 
 
When the plaintiff arrived on the scene, the employee did 
not perceive the plaintiff was in any danger; no conversation 
between the plaintiff and her assailant was overheard by the 
employee before she moved to the rear of the booth.  Indeed, the 
plaintiff herself testified that "nothing" she observed "at the 
time" made her "afraid."  When the employee returned to the 
front, she still had no knowledge that any assault was occurring 
or was about to occur.  The fact that two vehicles remained 
 
 
 
 
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parked on the premises at nighttime was not an unusual 
circumstance. 
 
When the plaintiff's friend arrived on the property, the 
plaintiff already had been abducted and was in the process of 
being attacked on adjacent property.  After the friend's 
unsuccessful preliminary search for the plaintiff, the employee 
indicated that "something is wrong."  However, because this 
statement was made after the abduction already had occurred, it 
fails as a matter of law to support a conclusion that, before the 
plaintiff was forced from defendant's premises, the employee knew 
of a specific danger to the plaintiff. 
 
The question whether a duty of care exists in a negligence 
action is a pure question of law.  Fox v. Custis, 236 Va. 69, 74, 
372 S.E.2d 373, 375 (1988).  In this case, the trial court erred 
in refusing to rule, as a matter of law, that the plaintiff had 
failed to establish defendant owed her a duty under these 
circumstances. 
 
Consequently, we will reverse the judgment in favor of the 
plaintiff and enter final judgment here for the defendant. 
 
Reversed and final judgment.