Opinion
CIVIL ACTION NO. 01-3193, SECTION "R"(1).
January 23, 2003.
ORDER AND REASONS
Before the Court is the motion of defendants, Capstar Hotels of Slidell, Inc., Meristar Hotels and Resorts Lessee, Inc., Fontana Lee, and Lumbermens Mutual Casualty Company (collectively referred to as "Meristar"), for summary judgment. Also before the Court is defendant Forte Security's motion for summary judgment. For the following reasons, the Court grants both motions.
I. Background
On October 24, 2000, plaintiffs Jon Oren and Barbara Oren met Barbara Oren's son and another friend at Bogey's Lounge, a bar located within the Ramada Inn in Slidell, Louisiana. A band played in the crowded bar that night, and people danced.
Plaintiffs were seated at a table and having a round of drinks. Standing at a nearby table was another patron, who was intoxicated. That patron lost his balance and fell into another patron who was also standing at his table. These two patrons fell into Fontana Lee, a waitress, and these three people all fell onto Barbara Oren. Drinks spilled everywhere, and the pile of people ended up on the floor, with Barbara Oren at the bottom.
Oren alleges that she was injured in the accident. She and her husband filed this lawsuit against a number of defendants alleging that they were negligent in failing to provide a safe atmosphere for bar patrons. Meristar, the hotel, moves for summary judgment asserting that the accident was not foreseeable. Plaintiffs also named as a defendant Forte Security, a private security company with which the hotel had contracted for the provision of certain security services. Forte moves for summary judgment on the ground that it owed no duty to plaintiffs.
II. Discussion
A. Legal Standard
Summary judgment is appropriate when there are no genuine issues as to any material facts, and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. FED. R. Civ. P. 56(c); Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2551 (1986). The court must be satisfied that no reasonable trier of fact could find for the nonmoving party or, in other words, "that the evidence favoring the nonmoving party is insufficient to enable a reasonable jury to return a verdict in her favor." Lavespere v. Niagara Mach. Tool Works, Inc., 910 F.2d 167, 178 (5th Cir. 1990); Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2510 (1986). The moving party bears the burden of establishing that there are no genuine issues of material fact. Krim v. BancTexas Group, Inc., 989 F.2d 1435, 1445 (5th Cir. 1993). A factual dispute precludes a grant of summary judgment if the evidence would permit a reasonable jury to return a verdict for the nonmoving party. See Hunt v. Rapides Healthcare System, LLC, 2001 WL 1650961 (5th Cir. 2001) (citations omitted).
If the dispositive issue is one for which the nonmoving party will bear the burden of proof at trial, the moving party may satisfy its burden by merely pointing out that the evidence in the record contains insufficient proof concerning an essential element of the nonmoving party's claim. Celotex, 477 U.S. at 325, 106 S.Ct. at 2552; Lavespere, 910 F.2d at 178. The burden then shifts to the nonmoving party, who must, by submitting or referring to evidence, set out specific facts showing that a genuine issue exists. Celotex, 477 U.S. at 324, 106 S.Ct. at 2553.
B. Claims Against Meristar
Under Louisiana law, courts apply a duty risk analysis to determine when liability based on negligence is present. Posecai v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 752 So.2d 762, 765 (La. 1999); Fleming v. Hilton Hotels Corporation, 774 So.2d 174, 177 (La.Ct.App. 2000). Plaintiffs must prove that the conduct is a cause in fact of the resulting harm; that the defendants owed a duty of care to the plaintiffs; that the duty was breached; and that the risk of harm was within the scope of the duty. Posecai, 752 So.2d at 765.
A hotel owes a duty to its patrons to exercise reasonable and ordinary care in maintaining its premises in a reasonably safe and suitable condition. Fleming, 774 So.2d at 177; Gray v. Holiday Inns, Inc., 762 So.2d 1172, 1175 (La.Ct.App. 2000). The duty that is owed to patrons is summarized as follows:
While the proprietor of a public place is not the guarantor of his patrons' safety, he owes them a duty to exercise reasonable care to protect them from harm at the hands of a fellow-guest or at the hands of his employees; such a proprietor owes a duty to guests to protect them from insult, annoyance and danger, and his guests have a right to rely on the belief they are in an orderly house and are protected from injury by the exercise of reasonable care for their safety by the operator of the establishment or his representative.Turley v. Straughan, 694 So.2d 532, 533 (La.Ct.App. 1997) (quoting Anderson v. Clements, 284 So.2d 341, 344 (La.Ct.App. 1973)). Hotels must therefore conduct reasonable inspections of the premises. Gray, 762 So.2d at 1175. An innkeeper's duty, however, does not extend to unforeseeable or unanticipated criminal acts by third persons. Turley, 694 So.2d at 533; Cangiano v. Forte Hotels, Inc., 772 So.2d 879, 881 (La.Ct.App. 2000). Nor is liability imposed if an accident "occurs very quickly and there is no evidence that the defendants had knowledge (or should have had knowledge) of the impending threat to the patrons' safety." Turley, 694 So.2d at 534; Johnston v. Fontana, 610 So.2d 1119, 1122 (La.Ct.App. 1992) (finding that an altercation in a bar was foreseeable when patrons involved in the fight "made repeated threats of physical violence over a thirty minute period of time and blatantly ignored at least five warnings to cool down").
In Eason v. Finch, 738 So.2d 1205 (La.Ct.App. 1999), the plaintiff had been a patron in a casino when an intoxicated patron accidentally knocked her down. The trial court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment, and its decision was affirmed on appeal. Eason, 738 So.2d at 1209. The Eason court noted that the casino was not "the insurer of the plaintiff's safety from all alcohol-related problems." Id. Importantly, before the accident happened the casino was not aware that the intoxicated individual posed a threat to other patrons. Id.; see also Turley, 694 So.2d at 534 (affirming the trial court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendant when the plaintiff sought to recover from an establishment where he was injured by other bar patrons in an unforeseeable attack); Delgado v. Laboucherie, Inc., 508 So.2d 956 (La.Ct.App. 1987).
This case is similar to Eason. Meristar produces uncontroverted evidence that the accident occurred very quickly and that the hotel neither knew nor should have known that plaintiffs' safety was threatened. Barbara Oren had been seated in the crowded bar for 45 minutes when the accident took place. (Meristar's Mot. for Summ. J., Dep. of Barbara Oren, at 45, 49.) She testified that the accident happened "all of a sudden" and that she was not aware that anything was going to happen. ( Id. at 52.) Although she was sitting just one table away from the patrons who ultimately fell into her, she had no personal knowledge that they were aggressive or acting boisterously. ( Id. at 70.) Similarly, Jon Oren, who was seated at the table with Barbara Oren, testified that he "had no idea [the fall] was coming." (Meristar's Mot. for Summ. J., Dep. of Jon Oren, at 15.) Also seated at the table with the Orens was David Duncan, whose testimony underscores the unforeseeability of the accident. Duncan testified that before the accident took place, "nothing unusual" happened. (Meristar's Mot. for Summ. J., Dep. of David Duncan, at 18.) He had not noticed any physical or verbal confrontation. ( Id. at 22.) Fontana Lee, the Orens' waitress, testified that the patron who caused the accident was a "regular" who had never caused problems in the past. (Meristar's Mot. for Summ. J., Dep. of Fontana Lee, at 83-85.) During her employment as a waitress at Bogey's, Lee had cut intoxicated patrons off when they had had too much to drink, but she never had to do this with the "regular" whose fall allegedly caused injury to plaintiffs. ( Id.) Lee further testified that she did not foresee the accident. ( Id.)
Plaintiffs produce no evidence that any employee of the bar knew of the threat that the intoxicated patron posed to other patrons on the evening of the accident. Instead, plaintiffs intimate that the bar should have recognized the threat. In support of this assertion, plaintiffs present the testimony of Rudolph Youmans, a patron who was seated at a table near the Orens on the night of accident. Youmans testified that during the 30 minutes before the accident, the intoxicated patron "would start to fall and he would grab the table and pull himself back up." (Pl.'s Opp. to Def.'s Mot. for Summ. J., Dep. of Youmans, at 17.) But Youmans, an "ex-cop from the Air Force" who has worked for a number of private security companies, also testified that he did not perceive the patron to be dangerous. ( Id. at 21.) Youmans did not foresee that the patron might cause injury to other patrons in the bar; his only concern was that the patron should not drive home. ( Id. at 14, 25 and 34.) Youmans never raised his concerns with his waitress, who, according to Youmans, would have noticed the patron's condition only if she was "sitting there looking [at him]." ( Id. at 20 and 37.)
The Court finds that plaintiffs have failed to create an issue of fact as to the foreseeability of the accident that allegedly caused injury to plaintiffs. Neither plaintiffs nor anyone else at the Orens' table foresaw the danger, even though they had been seated just a few feet away from the patrons who fell into them. Lee, who had cut off patrons from alcohol on other occasions, never had a problem with the intoxicated patron in the past and did not foresee that he posed a threat to other patrons on the evening of the accident. Youmans, a former security guard, noticed that the patron would grab his table to catch his balance but did not think that he posed a threat to other patrons. Importantly, Youmans did not bother to tell the waitress about it. In short, there is no evidence in the record that the bar knew or should have known that the patron posed a threat to other customers. Eason, 738 So.2d at 1209. The Court therefore grants Meristar's motion for summary judgment.
C. Claims Against Forte Security
Also named as a defendant in this lawsuit is Forte Security, the private security company with which the hotel contracted to provide security to the hotel grounds. (Forte's Mot. for Summ. J., Ex. 2.) Forte moves for summary judgment on the ground that they did not owe a duty to plaintiffs because its contract with the hotel provides that Forte security guards "are not bar bouncers" and that Forte is "not responsible for [Bogey's] lounge." (Forte's Mot. for Summ. J., Ex. 2 at 11; Dep. of Youmans, at 28.) Forte asserts that the security guards only stand near the entrance to the bar and, on occasion, pass through the bar to check for property damage. (Forte's Mot. for Summ. J., Ex. 3, Aff. of Felicia Hart; Ex. 6, Dep. of George Blayden, at 1-5.) The Court need not reach the issue of whether Forte owed a duty to plaintiffs because even if it did, this duty would be no broader than the duty that was owed by the hotel itself. Harris v. Pizza Hut of Louisiana, Inc., 455 So.2d 1364, 1372 (La. 1984); Gray, 762 So.2d at 1175. As previously discussed, this duty does not extend to the prevention of accidents, like this one, that are unexpected and unforeseeable. Turley, 694 So.2d at 534. Plaintiffs bring no evidence that Forte knew that the intoxicated patron posed a threat to plaintiffs on the night of the accident. Nor have plaintiffs raised an issue of fact as to whether the guards should have known of this threat. See discussion supra. The Court therefore grants Forte's motion for summary judgment.
III. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, the Court grants defendants' motions for summary judgment.