Opinion ID: 2085113
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Foreseeability of the Criminal Assault

Text: To prevail in a negligence cause of action, a plaintiff must prove `the applicable standard of care, a deviation from that standard by the defendant, and a causal relationship between that deviation and the plaintiff's injury.' Evans-Reid v. District of Columbia, 930 A.2d 930, 937 n. 6 (D.C.2007) (internal citation omitted). Where a plaintiff suffers injury due to an intervening criminal act committed by a third party, the requisite duty of care required for negligence is a function of foreseeability[.] District of Columbia v. Beretta, U.S.A., Corp., 872 A.2d 633, 641 (D.C.2005) (en banc). Appellant argues that a genuine issue of material fact remains as to whether Appellees could have foreseen the danger to Ms. Bruno and other business invitees and taken reasonable steps to prevent that danger. In support of this argument, appellant relies upon Viands v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 107 A.2d 118 (D.C.1954). [5] We cannot agree with Ms. Bruno that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment on the issue of foreseeability. When a plaintiff is injured by an intervening criminal act of a third party, liability is dependent `upon a more heightened showing of foreseeability than would be required if the act were merely negligent.' Beretta, supra, 872 A.2d at 641 (quoting Potts v. District of Columbia, 697 A.2d 1249, 1252 (D.C.1997)). The plaintiff bears `the burden of establishing that the criminal act was so foreseeable that a duty arises to guard against it. ' Id. (emphasis in original). In addition, `[b]ecause of the extraordinary nature of criminal conduct, the law requires that the foreseeability of the risk be more precisely shown.' Potts, supra, 697 A.2d at 1252 (quoting Clement v. Peoples Drug Store, 634 A.2d 425, 427 (D.C.1993)). If the intervening criminal act can fairly be said to be that which could not have been reasonably anticipated, plaintiff may not look beyond the intervening act for his recovery. District of Columbia v. Doe, 524 A.2d 30, 32-33 (D.C.1987) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). Here, the combination of factors relied upon by appellant is insufficient to establish that appellees had increased awareness of the danger of the particular criminal act that underlies this litigation. Appellant presented evidence of only two specific crimes that occurred at the gas station prior to the assault against her. First, a police report indicates that an assault involving a handgun occurred on April 26, 1998, two years prior to the assault in this case. The officer who completed the form report indicated that the assault took place in front of the customer area, leaving blank a box on the form that would have so indicated if the crime took place inside the gas station. Second, another report indicates that a theft occurred a few months prior to the attack upon appellant. This theft amounted to the snatching of cash and credit card receipts from a cigar box while the attending employee was in the restroom. [6] There was no evidence that any offense in the nature of an assault had occurred previously inside the gas station. We are not persuaded by appellant's contention that this case is governed by Viands, supra, 107 A.2d at 118. It is significant that Viands did not involve the criminal act of a third party and the court thus did not examine whether the plaintiff had made the sort of showing of foreseeability required here. In Viands, the plaintiff tripped over the delivery wagon of one of a multitude of boys who congregated regularly with their wagons on the sidewalk outside the store's entranceway. Id. at 119. There was no allegation that the boy's negligence amounted to criminal conduct; thus, the court had no occasion to apply a heightened foreseeability standard in determining whether the store owner had a duty of care. We find guidance in cases which, unlike the one before us, involved the use of weapons. See Potts, supra, 697 A.2d at 1252 (Our opinions have made clear the demanding nature of the requirement of `precise' proof of a `heightened showing of foreseeability' in the context of an intervening criminal act involving the discharge of weapons.) (citing Bailey v. District of Columbia, 668 A.2d 817, 819 (D.C.1995)). In Clement, supra, 634 A.2d at 425, the plaintiff's husband was shot and killed in the parking lot of the drug store where he worked. This court affirmed a directed verdict for the defendant drug store because [t]here was no showing ... that [the drug store] employees or customers were more exposed to criminal victimization than others in the general population. Id. at 429. The plaintiff there showed that twenty-nine crimes were reported in the area around the drug store within the three years preceding her husband's death. Id. This evidence also included reports of offenses at nearby stores, one of which involved a gun and one of which involved a knife. Id. It also included reports of six offenses that occurred in the very drug store where the victim worked, including two `snatches' of money out of cash registers, three apprehensions of shop lifters, and one assault upon a security guard. Id. However, we concluded that the evidence was insufficient, noting that none of the previous crimes at the drug store involved weapons or any significant physical harm to the victims[.] Id. Thus, we held that the evidence did not give the defendant a heightened or increased awareness of the danger of this particular criminal act. Id. Similarly, in Bailey, supra, 668 A.2d at 817, a plaintiff was held to have failed to meet the heightened foreseeability standard when she attempted to prove that the District of Columbia should have foreseen the criminal conduct which led to her injury. She was leaving her daughter's cheerleading competition when a gun fight began, and she was hit in the leg by a ricocheting bullet. Id. at 818-19. The event took place at Evans Junior High School, and was sponsored by the District's Department of Recreation. Id. at 818. The plaintiff sued the District for failing to provide adequate security precautions, asserting that the District knew, and `reasonably should have known of the high frequency of violence, and the reputation for violence' at the school. Id. at 819. Her evidence of foreseeability included primarily affidavits of witnesses asserting that the school was located in a high drug area where shootings occurred. Id. at 820. In affirming the trial court's grant of summary judgment for the District, this court noted the absence of evidence of any shooting incidents, assaults, or other gun-related violence at any Department [of Recreation] cheerleading competition or any other Department event held at [the school]. Id. at 820. Thus, the evidence was insufficient to show that the District had a `heightened' or `increased' awareness of the particular criminal act. Id. at 822. In Potts, supra, a case in which the plaintiffs were shot as they were leaving a boxing match held at the Washington Convention Center (WCC) and sponsored by Spencer Promotions, Inc., we also affirmed the grant of summary judgment to the defendants, noting that the plaintiffs had not proffered evidence of any prior gun-related violence at any other event held at the WCC or promoted by Spencer Promotions[.] 697 A.2d at 1252. Rather, the evidence consisted of the unsworn statement by the plaintiff's attorney that an expert witness would testify based on police reports of criminal activity in the area, `statistics regarding unreported crime, community characteristics, image and reputation of the location, environmental design of the building and the activity itself, i.e. boxing ... as well as a review of all records, pleadings, deposition transcripts and interviews with plaintiffs.' Id. at 1251. Thus, as in Bailey and Clement, the plaintiffs in Potts did not present specific evidence bearing directly on the foreseeability of the shooting incident at issue [.] Id. at 1252. By way of contrast, the plaintiffs in District of Columbia v. Doe prevailed in meeting the heightened foreseeability standard. The plaintiffs in Doe were a ten-year-old girl who attended a District of Columbia public school and her next friend, her mother. 524 A.2d at 30-31. They alleged that the District had breached its duty to protect the girl against criminal activity. Id. at 31. We held that the plaintiffs had adduced sufficient evidence to submit to the jury in order for it to determine whether school officials were on notice of the danger to students from assaultive criminal conduct by intruders. Id. at 33-34. The evidence included: crimes against persons in and around the school  an arson in the school and a robbery on the school's playground; sexual assaults and other violent activity in the surrounding area; and deficient school security  the open rear gate, broken doors, malfunctioning intercom, and presence of adult males who freely roamed throughout the school. Id. at 34. In Beretta, supra, 872 A.2d at 642  in which we described Doe as [t]he high-water mark, as it were, of a showing of facts sufficient to create a duty to protect against [intervening criminal] conduct  we compared the plaintiffs' showing in Doe with the lesser showings of foreseeability in Clement, Bailey, and Potts. In the three latter cases, liability was rejected as a matter of law because foreseeability (hence duty) was not limited by any evidentiary reference to a precise location or class of persons. Beretta, supra, 872 A.2d at 642. Doe is clearly distinguishable from the instant case, and the evidence here, as in Clement, Bailey, and Potts, lacks the precision necessary to limit foreseeability of this particular act [robbery by force and violence] to this location [inside the gas station] and this class of persons [customers within the gas station]. First, in other invitor-invitee cases similar to this one, we have distinguished Doe based on the relationship between school officials and young children in that case. See Clement, supra, 634 A.2d at 429 (Implicit in Doe's holding was the notion that particular care is required by school officials when the safety of young children is involved.); see also Bailey, supra, 668 A.2d at 821 (same). That difference aside, Doe is further distinguishable from this case because the failed security measures in Doe, including a broken gate and broken doors, were far more threatening. 524 A.2d at 34. Had those security measures worked, they might well have directly prevented the assailant from abducting his victim. Here, one could only speculate whether security cameras would have provided the deterrent effect necessary to prevent this crime. Cf. Nigido v. First Nat'l Bank of Baltimore, 264 Md. 702, 288 A.2d 127, 128 (1972) (affirming judgment sustaining bank's demurrer against declaration filed by bank customer shot in the course of bank robbery alleging that bank was negligent in that its camera and other protective devices were not functioning, bank failed to take proper precautions to guard building, and that unspecified history of bank robberies at location made robbery foreseeable). In addition, the elementary school in Doe was not open to the general public; therefore, the evidence that intruders roamed the halls of the school enhanced the foreseeability that a child could be abducted. 524 A.2d at 34. Here, the gas station was open to the public, making it unavoidably more difficult for the store owners and employees to separate potential robbers from ordinary customers. Cf. Nigido, supra, 288 A.2d at 128 (It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, for guards [at a bank] to filter the robbers from the hundreds of daily visitors to the premises.). Although the instant case does not concern a criminal act involving a firearm, as did Clement, Bailey, and Potts, the evidence here, as in those cases, fails to show that appellees had an increased awareness of the likelihood that this particular act would take place. The prior crimes at the gas station are remote from or dissimilar to the robbery in this case. As stated above, the one previous assault took place outside the gas station, two years prior to the robbery in this case. It also occurred one and one-half years before Apex purchased the gas station and nine months before Western Union signed its contract with Apex. Likewise, and as in Clement, supra, the previous snatching of money from the cigar box was a nonviolent offense that would not have placed appellees on notice that a customer would be assaulted during a robbery. Appellant also argues that the attack upon her was foreseeable because of the inherent danger of standing in line for an extended period at a location with a large sum of money, but cites no persuasive authority that a business owed her a heightened obligation under the circumstances present in this case. See Nigido, supra . This court expressed a different view in sustaining a verdict directed on opening statement in the somewhat similar situation of a customer injured as a result of a purse snatching in a supermarket in a high-crime area. Cook v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 354 A.2d 507, 508-09 (D.C.1976) (rejecting argument that because store was located in high crime area and similar incidents had occurred there and in the adjacent streets such assaults upon customers were foreseeable and store had duty to provide guard service). The record suggests that the assault against appellant was committed by a loiterer; however, there is no evidence that loiterers had ever caused or attempted to cause physical harm to customers of the gas station in the past. Therefore, appellant has not made a persuasive showing that the prior crimes or the presence of the loiterers gave appellees a heightened or increased awareness of the danger of this particular criminal act. Clement, supra, 634 A.2d at 429. Thus, although one cannot help but feel sympathy for appellant, our controlling legal precedents do not warrant requiring appellees to answer in damages for her unfortunate injuries. [7] For the foregoing reasons, the trial court's grant of summary judgment in favor of appellees is affirmed. So ordered.