Court Opinion

ID: 9577598
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:36:24.264079+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:20:52.479210
License: Public Domain

*534POFF, J.,
concurring.
I concur in the result the majority has reached but cannot subscribe to the negligence standard which I understand the Court has adopted. I would endorse the logic underlying the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 344 (1965). This rule has been adopted in nearly every jurisdiction that has considered it. See id. app. at 523-43 (1986).
A business invitor is not an insurer of the safety of his invitees, and, ordinarily, he has no duty to protect them from criminal assaults by third persons. If, however, the character of his business or his past experience in the conduct of his business is such that a reasonable person should anticipate criminal assaults committed on the premises by third persons, an invitor may have a duty to warn his invitees or to take other precautionary measures to protect them from bodily harm. Id. comment f (1965). A number of courts have found that such a duty may exist if an invitor knows or should know of a history of prior criminal assaults committed on his business premises that poses a reasonable likelihood that other invitees may be the victim of criminal assaults. See, e.g., Stevens v. Jefferson, 436 So. 2d 33, 34-35 (Fla. 1983); Early v. N.L.V. Casino Corp., 100 Nev. 200, 203-04, 678 P.2d 683, 684-85 (1984); Butler v. Acme Markets, Inc., 89 N.J. 270, 277-81, 445 A.2d 1141, 1145-46 (1982); Nallon v. Helmsley-Spear, Inc., 50 N.Y.2d 507, 519-20, 407 N.E.2d 451, 458, 429 N.Y.S.2d 606, 613 (1980); Murphy v. Penn Fruit Co., 274 Pa. Super. 427, 433-34, 418 A.2d 480, 483-84 (1980). Although I agree that the prior criminal assaults reflected in the evidence in this case would not raise such a duty, I would not categorically foreclose the possibility of a duty stemming from a history of prior assaults.
STEPHENSON, J., joins in concurring opinion.