Court Opinion

ID: 9671177
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:32:27.922767+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:08.501684
License: Public Domain

OWEN, Justice,
concurring.
I fully join in the Court’s opinion and judgment. I write separately only to clarify that in concurring in the generalized state*56ments in this and other of our decisions regarding responsibility for the criminal acts of third parties, I do not intend to convey the impression that those articulations have fully defined the extent of the duty owed by an employer, landlord, business owner, or possessor of property when the danger of injury or death from a violent criminal act is, in a legal sense, foreseeable. I do not construe our decisions to shift the responsibility for police protection from law enforcement agencies to the private sector in areas where violent crimes have occurred.
In several decisions, we have said that a landowner or possessor of property has a duty to exercise reasonable care to protect invitees on the premises from criminal acts of third parties if the landowner knows or has reason to know of an unreasonable risk of harm to the invitee. See, e.g., Exxon Corp. v. Tidwell, 867 S.W.2d 19, 21 (Tex.1993); see also Walker v. Harris, 924 S.W.2d 375, 377 (Tex.1996); Centeq Realty, Inc. v. Siegler, 899 S.W.2d 195, 197 (Tex.1995). We have also said that a landlord owes the same duty to tenants and to employees of tenants when the landlord has the right of control over the leased premises or common areas. Exxon, 867 S.W.2d at 21.
I agree with these general statements. Employers and possessors of premises should shoulder some responsibility for the protection of those at the workplace or on the premises from criminal acts. However, in an increasingly violent society, in which crime may be visited upon virtually anyone at any time or place, there should be some certainty and predictability about what actions will satisfy the duty of care. Our general statements give little guidance other than “reasonable” or “ordinary care.” We have not yet been called upon to consider in any detail the extent of the duty to take precautions against the criminal acts of third parties when violent crime is “foreseeable.” The issue is a difficult one.
Other courts have identified competing principles and policies that arise when considering the imposition of a duty on a landowner or possessor of premises to protect against the criminal acts of third parties. In an early and frequently cited case in which a deliveryman had been assaulted one afternoon in an elevator of a large housing project, the Supreme Court of New Jersey concluded that the housing authority did not have a duty to provide police protection. Goldberg v. Housing Auth., 38 N.J. 578, 186 A.2d 291, 298-99 (1962). That court applied the standard of care that would apply to a private landowner and was persuaded by several factors. First, the court saw the police function as a governmental one. Id., 186 A.2d at 296. Second, the inevitable vagueness of the proposed duty was problematic. As that court put it, “[fjaimess ordinarily requires that a man be able to ascertain in advance of a jury’s verdict whether the duty is his and whether he has performed it.” Id. at 297. The court posed a series of questions about when the duty might arise and how it might be discharged and then reflected: “Must the owner prevent all crime? We doubt that any police force in the friendliest community has achieved that end. How then can the owner know what is enough to protect the tenants in their persons and property?” Id.
The New Jersey court was also concerned about the issue of causation: “It must be remembered that police protection does not, and cannot, provide assurance against all criminal attacks, and so the topic presupposes that inevitably crimes will be committed notwithstanding the sufficiency of the force. Hence the question of proximate cause is bound to be of exceptional difficulty.” Id.
Finally, the court recognized social and economic implications:.
If the owner must provide [doormen], every insurance carrier will insist that he do it. The bill will be paid, not by the owner, but by the tenants. And if, as we apprehend, the incidence of crime is greatest in the areas in which the poor must live, they, and they alone, will be singled out to pay for their own police protection. The burden should be upon the whole community and not upon the segment of the citizenry which is least able to bear it.
Id. at 298. The New Jersey court accordingly refused to say that an owner must provide security personnel “at the tenants’ ultimate *57cost, on the pain of liability for damages.” Id. at 299.
Other decisions reflect a contrary viewpoint and weigh these same factors much differently, as in the case of Kline v. 1500 Massachusetts Avenue Apartment Corp., 439 F.2d 477 (D.C.Cir.1970). The District of Columbia Circuit held not only that a landlord had a duty to provide security personnel in an apartment complex, but that the duty had been breached as a matter of law. Id. at 478. There had been assaults and robberies perpetrated against tenants of an apartment building in and from the common hallways. The court found the risk of criminal assault to be “entirely predictable,” and because the owner was the only one with the power to secure the common passageways, the court found a duty to do so existed. Id. at 483. The court rejected the concerns expressed in Goldberg, holding that the rationale faltered when applied to conditions of modern-day urban apartment living. Id. at 481. The District of Columbia Circuit recognized that an owner was not an insurer, but said that “he certainly is no bystander.” Id. The court distinguished Goldberg by saying that the New Jersey court was using the word “foreseeable” interchangeably with the word “possible.” Id. at 483. However, this seems to me to beg the question. Assuming that there is foreseeability in the sense of legal foreseeability, not just a possibility, the factors that the Goldberg court considered have a place in the analysis.
These are just two of the earlier decisions in this arena, and the struggle to achieve the appropriate balance continues. Indeed, the Supreme Court of New Jersey retreated from its Goldberg decision in Butler v. Acme Markets, Inc., 89 N.J. 270, 445 A.2d 1141, 1145-46 (1982) (distinguishing the rationale of Goldberg and holding that in the absence of a warning about previous incidents in a grocery store parking lot, the issue of whether a single security guard was sufficient was a question for the jury). However, at least one jurisdiction has begun to head in the other direction, at least in some measure, after rethinking its prior pronouncements. In Ann M. v. Pacific Plaza Shopping Center, 6 Cal.4th 666, 25 Cal.Rptr.2d 137, 146, 863 P.2d 207, 216 (1993), the Supreme Court of California, in bank, held that under the facts of the case before it, the owner of a shopping center did not owe a duty to provide security patrols in the common areas. In Ann M., the employee of a tenant was raped one morning shortly after she opened the photo shop in which she worked. Prior to the assault, there had been demands by the tenants for greater security, including patrols, and for the eviction of vagrants who frequented the common areas. Id. at 139-40, 863 P.2d at 209-10. The California court concluded that the existence and scope of the duty to provide protection from foreseeable third-party crime is a question of law to be determined in part by weighing the foreseeability of the harm against the burden of the duty to be imposed. Id. at 145, 863 P.2d at 215. When the burden of preventing future harm is great, the court reasoned, a high degree of foreseeability may be required. A lesser degree of foreseeability may be required when there are strong policy reasons for preventing the harm or when the harm can be prevented by simple means. Id. On the issue of security guards, the court said this:
While there may be circumstances where the hiring of security guards will be required to satisfy a landowner’s duty of care, such action will rarely, if ever, be found to be a “minimal burden.” The monetary costs of security guards is not insignificant. Moreover, the obligation to provide patrols adequate to deter criminal conduct is not well defined. “No one really knows why people commit crime, hence no one really knows what is ‘adequate’ deterrence in any given situation.” Finally, the social costs of imposing a duty on landowners to hire private police forces are also not insignificant. For these reasons, we conclude that a high degree of foreseeability is required in order to find that the scope of a landlord’s duty of care includes the hiring of security guards.
Id. (citations omitted).
In reaching this conclusion, the court modified the approach it had taken in Isaacs v. Huntington Memorial Hospital, 38 Cal.3d 112, 211 Cal.Rptr. 356, 362, 695 P.2d 653, 659 (1985), which had rejected the requirement *58that there be “prior similar incidents” before imposing a duty. Foreseeability of the criminal conduct under Isaacs was to be determined in light of all the circumstances. Id. In Ann M., the court revived the “prior similar incidents” requirement, holding that “the requisite degree of foreseeability rarely, if ever, can be proven in the absence of prior similar incidents of violent crime on the landowner’s premises.” 25 Cal.Rptr.2d at 145, 863 P.2d at 215. The prior incidents in Ann M., said the court, were not comparable to rape. The California court did indicate, however, that security guards may have been appropriate under the facts in Isaacs because there was evidence of prior violent incidents. Id.
There are many other cases that deal with liability for the criminal acts of third parties, and a number of commentators have written on the subject.1 It is not my intention to engage in a comprehensive survey of the law or even to survey all the factors that bear upon the question of duty in the context of criminal acts of third parties. I write only to highlight some very difficult issues in this area of the law, none of which this Court has addressed or resolved by its broad statements about the duty owed.
The seminal decision in Texas in the area of liability for the criminal acts of third parties is Nixon v. Mr. Property Management Co., 690 S.W.2d 546 (Tex.1985). It is the only case decided by this Court in which we actually held that a duty was owed by a possessor of property regarding the criminal acts of third parties and articulated what that duty was. However, in Nixon the duty itself and its parameters were provided by an ordinance. A ten-year-old girl had been abducted from in front of her apartment complex and taken across the street directly to a vacant apartment in another complex, where she was raped. The apartment in which she was assaulted had no glass in the windows and the door was off its hinges in violation of a city ordinance that required an owner to keep the doors and windows of a vacant structure secured to prevent unauthorized entry. Id. at 547-48. This Court held that the ordinance established minimum standards for landowners and that an unexcused violation of the ordinance constituted negligence as a matter of law because the ordinance was meant to deter criminal activity and the victim fell within the class to be protected. Id. at 549. The Court then proceeded to examine the question of proximate cause.
It was in the discussion of proximate cause, not duty, that the Court focused on foreseeability in Nixon. The Court found evidence of prior violent crimes at the apartment complex. In this context we said that evidence of specific previous crimes on or near the premises raises a fact issue on foreseeability. Id. at 550. Later in the opinion, we reiterated that with the “litany” of prior crimes, including other violent and as-saultive crime, a fact issue existed on the issue of “foreseeability of this crime as it relate[d] to the proximate cause issue.” Id. at 551.
Foreseeability, of course, is a factor in both proximate cause and duty. Union Pump Co. v. Allbritton, 898 S.W.2d 773, 775 (Tex.1995) (foreseeability is an element of proximate cause); Greater Houston Transp. Co. v. Phillips, 801 S.W.2d 523, 525 (Tex.1990) (foreseeability is a factor in determining whether a duty is owed). Generally, the issue of proximate cause tends to be a fact question, although some causes in fact do not constitute legal causation as a matter of law. See Union Pump, 898 S.W.2d at 775-76. Duty, on the other hand, is a question of law for the courts that is to be determined from *59the facts surrounding the occurrence in question. Greater Houston Transp., 801 S.W.2d at 525 (citing Otis Eng’g Corp. v. Clark, 668 S.W.2d 307, 312 (Tex.1983)). Foreseeability is a consideration to be weighed by the court in determining if a duty is owed and the nature of that duty, but other factors include the risk and the likelihood of injury weighed against the social utility of the actor’s conduct, the magnitude of the burden of guarding against the injury, and the consequences of placing the burden on the defendant. Id.
As already noted, none of our decisions since Nixon have held that a duly to take measures to protect against the criminal acts of third parties existed under the particular facts before the Court. In Exxon, 867 S.W.2d at 21-23, the holding of the Court concerned the right of control. The right of control was also the issue in Centeq Realty, 899 S.W.2d at 197-99. We assumed without deciding in Centeq that a condominium owner’s association owed a duty to residents to provide “adequate security.” Id. at 198. Our decision in Walker, 924 S.W.2d at 377, likewise declined to express an opinion on whether the case fell within an exception to the no-duty rule. We decided Walker on the basis that “[wjhatever duty a lessor may have,” there can be no duty in the absence of a foreseeable risk of harm from violent crime on the premises. Id. The fatal stabbing in Walker was not foreseeable as a matter of law. Id. at 378.
Accordingly, other than in Nixon, our Court has not considered the extent of the duty that a landlord owes when the leased premises are located in an area where assaults, murders, or drive-by shootings have occurred. And, other than in Nixon, we have not had occasion to opine on what specific actions may or may not be necessary to discharge the duty to take reasonable steps to protect against the criminal acts of third parties. With regard to residential property: Are locks on doors and windows and adequate lighting enough? Are security guards or security cameras or both required? Must the premises be enclosed by a security fence with guards at all entrances? Are any of these measures designed to prevent injury from a drive-by shooting or from the detonation of an explosive in an adjoining street? What are the implications for those of low income seeking affordable housing? Similarly, with regard to places of business: How much security is enough? What are the implications for small businesses in economically depressed areas? Does an employer have a duty to escort employees between its place of business and their transportation if the business is located in an area where rapes and other assaults have occurred? Does it make a difference whether an employee parks in a lot adjoining the business or walks ten blocks to a bus stop or subway station? These are just some of the types of questions that have not yet confronted this Court. Foreseeability is the beginning, not the end, of the analysis in determining the extent of the duty to protect against criminal acts of third parties.
Courts across the country agree that an owner or possessor of property is not an insurer of the safety of those on the premises. See, e.g., Exxon, 867 S.W.2d at 21 (stating that employer is not insurer of employee’s safety); Ann M., 25 Cal.Rptr.2d at 145-46, 863 P.2d at 215-16 (holding that to impose duty without requisite degree of foreseeability would force landlords to become insurers of public safety); Kline, 439 F.2d at 487 (emphasizing that landlord is by no means an insurer of the safety of tenants). On the other hand, public policy demands that some measures be taken by the private sector to prevent injury from the foreseeable criminal acts of third parties. Finding the appropriate middle ground between these two principles is where the difficulty lies.
Unfortunately, our Court has been called upon to decide an increasing number of cases that involve criminal acts, and they are not limited to premises cases. See, e.g., Farmers Texas County Mut. Ins. Co. v. Griffin, 939 S.W.2d 139 (Tex.1997) (drive-by shooting); National Union Fire Ins. Co. v. Merchants Fast Motor Lines, Inc., 939 S.W.2d 139 (Tex.1997) (shooting from an automobile); Golden Spread Council, Inc. #562 of The Boy Scouts of Am. v. Akins, 926 S.W.2d 287 (Tex.1996) (sexual molestation of a young boy); Kerrville State Hosp. v. Clark, 923 S.W.2d 582 (Tex.1996) (brutal murder of *60woman by her husband); Doe v. Boys Clubs of Greater Dallas, Inc., 907 S.W.2d 472 (Tex.1995) (sexual molestation of a young boy). I suspect and regret that the issue of who is hable for criminal acts other than the criminal will be a recurring one.

. See, e.g., G. Robert Friedman & Kathleen J. Worthington, Trends in Holding Business Organizations Liable for the Criminal Acts of Third Persons on the Premises: A Texas Perspective, 32 S. Tex.L.Rev. 257 (1991); B.A. Glesner, Landlords As Cops: Tort, Nuisance & Forfeiture Standards Imposing Liability on Landlords for Crime on the Premises, 42 Case W.Res.L.Rev. 679 (1992); Laura DiCola Kulwicki, Comment, A Landowner’s Duty to Guard Against Criminal Attack: Foreseeability and the Prior Similar Incidents Rule, 48 Ohio St.LJ. 247 (1987); Donna Lee Welch, Comment, Ann M. v. Pacific Plaza Shopping Center: The California Supreme Court Retreats from Its 'Totality of the Circumstances’ Approach to Premises Liability, 28 Ga.L.Rev. 1053 (1994); Michael J. Yelnosky, Comment, Business Inviters' Duty to Protect Invitees from Criminal Acts, 134 U.Pa. L.Rev. 883 (1986).