Opinion
January 19, 1993
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Nassau County (O'Shaughnessy, J.).
Ordered that the order is reversed, on the law, with costs, the motion is granted, the complaint is dismissed insofar as it is asserted against Sears, Roebuck and Company, and the action against the remaining defendants is severed.
These actions, insofar as they involve the moving defendant Sears, Roebuck and Company (hereinafter Sears), are premised on the claim that the defendant Robert Izzo, while in the course of driving the infant plaintiffs to and from school as an employee of the defendant Harran Transportation Company, Inc., brought the children onto property owned by Sears, where he sexually molested them. However, where, as here, there is no relationship between the landowner and the perpetrator of the crime, and there is no connection between the plaintiffs and the subject premises independent of the crime itself, no duty may be imposed on the landowner to protect the plaintiffs from criminal acts (see, Waters v. New York City Hous. Auth., 69 N.Y.2d 225; Patricia B. v Brown, 149 A.D.2d 450; Parker v. D/U Third Realty Co., 141 A.D.2d 301; see also, Kulier v. Harran Transp. Co., 189 A.D.2d 803 [decided herewith]). Accordingly, Sears is awarded summary judgment dismissing the complaint insofar as it is asserted against it. Balletta, J.P., Rosenblatt, Miller and O'Brien, JJ., concur.