7 Hollywood Blvd. Venture v. Superior Court

• Decision Date: 16 March 1981
• Citation: 172 Cal.Rptr. 528,116 Cal.App.3d 901
• Parties: The 7735 HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD VENTURE, a limited partnership; Richard Babbitt, general partner, Petitioners, v. SUPERIOR COURT of the State of California, COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, Respondent. Christy Pugh DAVIS, Real Party in Interest. Civ. 60819.
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 528

172 Cal.Rptr. 528

116 Cal.App.3d 901

The 7735 HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD VENTURE, a limited partnership; Richard Babbitt, general partner, Petitioners, v. SUPERIOR COURT of the State of California, COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, Respondent Christy Pugh DAVIS, Real Party in Interest.

Civ. 60819.

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 2, California.

March 16, 1981.

Hearing Denied July 13, 1981.

Robert E. Long, Los Angeles, for petitioners.

No appearance for respondent court.

Michael H. Silvers, W. Los Angeles, for real party in interest.

COMPTON, Associate Justice.

We issued an alternative writ of mandate to review the trial court's order overruling a demurrer to a complaint for personal injuries, which complaint is based on a novel theory of landowner's liability for the criminal acts of third parties. We conclude that the complaint fails to state a cause of action and the demurrer should have been sustained.

Plaintiff instituted an action against the owner of an apartment house in which she is a tenant. The injury for which she seeks compensation resulted from a forcible rape committed against her by an intruder who forced entrance into her apartment. The crime was committed at approximately 4:30 in the morning.

The property owner's liability for such injury is alleged to rest on a combination of two factors. (1) knowledge that violent crime, including burglary and rape, had occurred in the "general area, vicinity and neighborhood" within the previous six months; that some of these crimes, according to media accounts, were committed by the same person who had been dubbed "The westside rapist" and (2) negligent failure to replace a burned out light which had been "lighting the outside of plaintiff's apartment."

The complaint, which seeks both compensatory and punitive damages, attempts to construct a bridge of causation between these two factors and the injury which plaintiff suffered by purely conclusionary allegations that the burglar-rapist would not have committed the crime had there been "adequate lighting."

We observe that the complaint is silent as to several significant points: (1) there is no allegation that any crime had previously occurred on these particular premises, (2) there is no description of the size or character of the area embraced by the phrase "general area, vicinity or neighborhood." It cannot be determined whether plaintiff is referring to an area of a few square blocks, a few square miles or in fact the City or County of Los Angeles as a whole, (3) if there was such an individual known to the media as "The westside rapist" the complaint does not allege that he is the one who attacked plaintiff, (4) there are no factual allegations to support the claim that the owner of the apartment house possessed knowledge any more precise than the knowledge of any citizen in Los Angeles County that there are violent crimes committed in this county, (5) other than an allegation of the widely-held notion that darkness is an ally of the stealthful criminal, the complaint provides no basis for attributing to the apartment owner an ability to predict or foresee where such criminals might strike next or just how such criminals could be deterred, (not even the police can boast of such prescience), and finally (6) the complaint does not describe with any particularity the area to be illuminated by the light in question or its relationship, if any, to the manner in which the intruder entered the apartment.

Plaintiff directs our attention to several sections of the Restatement of Torts, which recite the general and well-established principles that while a criminal act of a third person is generally a superceding cause of injury, such is not the case where intentional or negligent conduct creates a foreseeable and unreasonable risk of harm from conduct of a third person and liability for that harm can be imposed on the original actor even though the third party's conduct be criminal. (Rest., Torts, §§ 302B, 448, 449; Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California, 17 Cal.3d 425, 131 Cal.Rptr. 14, 551 P.2d 334.)

Of course the application of these rules to a given factual setting requires an analysis which transcends simply a recitation of the principle and an exercise in semantics. In situations where conduct affirmatively and directly places another in a position of peril of which the latter is ignorant or where his ability to protect himself is impaired, the original actor is not relieved of liability because the peril results in injury from criminal conduct by third persons.

Thus in O'Hara v. Western Seven Trees Corp., 75 Cal.App.3d 798, 142 Cal.Rptr. 487, a complaint for personal injury against a landlord where the plaintiff had been raped on leased premises was held to survive a demurrer because it was alleged...