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COMMERCIAL LANDLORD LIABILITY FOR TENNANT SAFETY

By David M. Griffith, Esq.

Q. We are property managers for several neighborhood shopping centers. Most of the stores in the centers close by eight o'clock, but there is a supermarket in two of the properties that operates until eleven o'clock. We provide a security patrol of the properties until eight o'clock, but the supermarket also has its own security service for their two stores. Recently there has been a string of "closing time" robberies of other nearby retail properties in the city where the shopping centers are located, and one sexual assault has occurred in our parking lot. Should we be concerned about extending the security patrols or hiring a security guard for the center until closing time for the supermarket, or even beyond this time until all supermarket employees and customers have left the premises?
A. Yes. In 1993 the California Supreme Court ruled in Ann M. v. Pacific Plaza Shopping Center that store owners were generally not liable for crimes committed on their premises, unless crime victims could show "prior similar incidents of violent crime" on the property. In a recent appellate court decision from a San Francisco court, Lisa P. v Bingham, in an armed robbery case involving rape, the court determined that a personal injury claim may be sustained when there have been other armed robberies in the same shopping center, not just at the retail store in question.

* Ann M. v. Pacific Plaza Shopping Center Ruling Clarified. This case involved a suit by an employee at a photo laboratory who was raped by an armed robber as the facility opened for business. The California Supreme Court ruled that liability against the store and property owners was barred based upon the fact that there was no showing of a previous similar crime in that location.

Court Defines “Similar Previous Crimes” in Lisa P. v. Bingham. In this case two Clothestimes clerks were attacked when a man came into their store at closing time. The assailant employed a gun to rob the store and then raped one of the women on the premises. In their civil suit for damages the clerks named the assailant, as well as the shopping center owner, the property manager, and an Albertson’s supermarket which provided security patrols, but not during the evening hours. The court stated that they interpreted the California Supreme Court’s standard to require only “foreseeability, not dead bang inevitability” that a similar crime may be committed. At the shopping center in question there had been armed robberies at a yogurt shop, a Carl’s Jr. and a Taco Bell. These incidents were enough to establish for the court that prior similar incidents of violent crime may be foreseeable for this center, even though they had never occurred before at the Clothestime store, and even though they involved robberies rather than sexual assaults.

Significance of Court’s Ruling. This decision substantially expands the duty of shopping center owners, store owners and property managers to attempt to prevent criminal acts against customers or employees while on their premises. Such parties must now be concerned about even one incident of violent crime anywhere in their shopping center triggering a higher standard of care toward customers or employees. For potential liability to exist for a second crime the crimes do not have to be identical, nor do they have to occur in the same location or store. As the majority opinion concluded, similar crimes at similar neighboring stores may provide the necessary degree of foreseeability. Thus shopping center and store owners and property managers are cautioned to view any incident of serious criminal activity at their centers in the light of this new decision, and to take prompt action to review existing security measures and to upgrade these procedures, if necessary, to ensure customer and employee safety after any such incident.

David M. Griffith is a real estate and business attorney with offices in Long Beach. He serves as legal counsel to California Centers Magazine. For more information please contact 310/983-8017.