Summary
In Evans v. 141 Condominium Corp., 258 A.D.2d 293, 685 N.Y.S.2d 191 (1st Dept. 1999), the plaintiff was attacked just as she was about to open the door to the building, where she knew there might be no doorman stationed at that time.
Summary of this case from CB v. Howard Sec.Opinion
February 9, 1999
Appeal from the Supreme Court, New York County (Richard Lowe, III, J.).
Defendants own and manage the Manhattan apartment building located at 141 East 55th Street. At all times relevant to this action, plaintiff was a tenant in this building. She brought this negligent security action against defendants after she was assaulted by an unidentified robber in front of the building.
According to plaintiff's deposition testimony, on February 25, 1992, at about 8:40 P.M., she was just about to open the outer door of her building when the assailant grabbed her purse, dragged her away from the door and threw her to the ground. The entrance of the apartment building consisted of a pair of outer glass doors, over which hung an awning. The outer doors led into a four-foot vestibule with an intercom and beyond this was a second set of glass doors leading into the lobby. In addition to the light from the lobby, the sidewalk outside the entrance was illuminated by several light fixtures, which were located in the vestibule and on the facade of the building surrounding the doorway. Plaintiff testified that the overall lighting was of medium brightness and added that she had very good eyes and could see well in the dark. Her complaint nonetheless charged defendants with failing to provide proper illumination.
There was generally a doorman stationed in the lobby who would be able to see the street through the glass doors. The night doorman's shift lasted from 4:00 P.M. until midnight. However, this doorman's scheduled dinner break occurred from 8:00 to 9:00 P.M. and defendants did not assign another doorman to relieve him. The lobby was therefore unmanned at the time of the subject incident, and on that fact turns plaintiff's claim of negligent security.
Plaintiff alleges that defendants undertook to provide 24-hour doorman service, but negligently failed to station another doorman between 8:00 and 9:00 P.M. while the regular night doorman had dinner. She relies heavily on the deposition testimony of Richard Solano, the building superintendent, who initially stated that there was a doorman on guard "24 hours". However, he quickly qualified that by adding that the night doorman was allowed to leave the lobby unattended when he took his break at 8:00 P.M. Though plaintiff argues that tenants were induced to rely on the representation of 24-hour doorman service, she testified that she knew of this policy and that there was usually no doorman at this time of night.
In support of her claim that the assault she suffered was foreseeable, plaintiff described the following history of criminal acts in the vicinity. There was a murder in the building in 1990 and a robbery in 1991. Two employees of an all-night deli on the same block were shot, one fatally, during a 1991 robbery. Notably, none of these crimes resembles plaintiff's experience, as they took place in different locations and had no evident causal connection to the periodic absences of the doorman in plaintiff's building.
The IAS Court denied defendants' motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, finding that triable issues existed as to foreseeability, proximate cause, and whether defendants exercised due care in performing an assumed duty to provide 24-hour doorman service. We reverse and grant defendants' motion because we find, as a matter of law, that defendants breached no duty to plaintiff.
To establish a prima facie case of negligence, plaintiff must show that defendants owed her a duty and that their breach of this duty caused her to suffer injuries ( Solomon v. City of New York, 66 N.Y.2d 1026, 1027). A landowner has a legal duty to take minimal precautions to protect members of the public from reasonably foreseeable criminal acts by third parties ( Leyva v. Riverbay Corp., 206 A.D.2d 150, 152).
The landlord has no duty to safeguard tenants from neighborhood crime as such. The duty to protect against criminal intruders only arises when ambient crime has seriously infiltrated the premises or when the landlord is on notice of a serious risk of such infiltration ( Todorovich v. Columbia Univ., 245 A.D.2d 45, 46, lv denied 92 N.Y.2d 805). Defendants had no general duty to protect tenants or other members of the public from criminal activity on the sidewalk outside their building ( Rodriguez v. Oak Point Mgt., 87 N.Y.2d 931, 932). The prior incidents noted by plaintiff were too unrelated to her situation to support a claim that the instant assault was a foreseeable consequence of defendant leaving the lobby unattended ( Todorovich v. Columbia Univ., supra, at 47).
Plaintiff does not contend, and cannot plausibly argue, that defendants failed to take even minimal precautions ( see, Todorovich v. Columbia Univ., supra, at 47 [working locks and part-time doorman constituted sufficient security, particularly in absence of any history of prior similar crimes on premises]). Here, there was no dispute, that the locks were working and that a doorman was available at least 23 hours a day. Plaintiff's allegations that the illumination; was insufficient is contradicted by her own deposition testimony. In any event, she has failed to explain why better lighting would have prevented the incident, since she admittedly sees well in the dark and there was no doorman in the lobby who could have prevented the crime even if he had seen it.
The record similarly does not support her argument that defendants assumed a duty to provide 24-hour doorman service. The doorman's hour-long absence was authorized as part of his shift. In her deposition testimony, plaintiff indicated she was aware of this pre-existing policy. These facts distinguish the instant case from cases such as Nallan v. Helmsley-Spear, Inc. ( 50 N.Y.2d 507). Nallan held that while a jury might find that the owner and manager of a building where several crimes had occurred fulfilled their duty by providing only part-time guard service, the unexpected absence of the security guard during his shift was an act of negligence that could be attributed to his employer ( Nallan v. Helmsley-Spear, Inc., supra, at 520). The Court of Appeals noted that a plaintiff must "show not only that [defendants] undertook to provide a service and did so negligently, but also that its conduct in undertaking the service somehow placed [plaintiff] in a more vulnerable position" than if defendants had never assumed this obligation in the first place ( Nallan v. Helmsley-Spear, Inc., supra, at 522). In other words, defendants could only be held liable if it was foreseeable that persons like plaintiff would be "lulled into a false sense of security" by the expectation of the guard's presence, and therefore would take less precautions when entering the building ( Nallan v. Helmsley-Spear, Inc., supra, at 522). Plaintiff has failed to raise an issue of fact as to whether she relied to her detriment on the belief that a doorman would be present despite the building's established policy of leaving the lobby unattended between 8:00 and 9:00 P.M.
Concur — Sullivan, J. P., Rosenberger, Nardelli and Saxe, JJ.