San Diego Appellate Partners Jeffry Miller and Lann McIntyre along with San Diego Appellate Associate Brittany Bartold recently convinced a California appellate court to affirm a grant of summary judgment in our favor in a suit arising from a shooting at an apartment complex.
The plaintiffs contend a duty was owed by the property owners and property managers of an apartment complex to take action before a tenant went on an unforeseeable shooting rampage against his neighbors. The plaintiffs — surviving members of the family — sought to hold the defendants liable on negligence and premises liability theories. They contended that triable issues of fact existed as to whether the attack was foreseeable to the defendants, but San Bernardino Partner Art Cunningham secured a grant of summary judgment in favor of our clients.
The Court of Appeal concluded that the motion for summary judgment was properly granted. The court explained 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. The burdensome action of eviction and hiring a security guard was not necessary as the acts of the shooter were not foreseeable. The defendants thus negated the duty element of the plaintiffs’ negligence claim, and the plaintiffs failed to show a triable issue of material fact on that element.
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