Berdeaux v. City Nat. Bank of Birmingham

• Decision Date: 22 December 1982
• Parties: J.L. BERDEAUX v. CITY NATIONAL BANK OF BIRMINGHAM, Alabama. 81-885.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 594

424 So.2d 594

J.L. BERDEAUX v. CITY NATIONAL BANK OF BIRMINGHAM, Alabama.

81-885.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

Dec. 22, 1982.

Richard W. Bell of Bell, Yeager, Allen & Johnson, Pelham, for appellant.

W.B. Fernambucq of Huie, Fernambucq & Stewart, Birmingham, for appellee.

SHORES, Justice.

This is an appeal from a summary judgment granted in favor of City National Bank of Birmingham (hereinafter the bank).

Mr. Berdeaux filed a complaint alleging negligence and wantonness by the bank in the maintenance, operation, or control of its premises known as the Oxmoor Road Branch of the City National Bank of Birmingham.

Mr. Berdeaux entered the bank on October 5, 1979, to make a payment on a loan which he owed to City National Bank of Birmingham and to make a deposit. While he was inside the bank, three people robbed the bank and, during the course of the robbery, Mr. Berdeaux was shot by one or more of the robbers.

The bank did not have a security guard on the premises at the time. The sequence video tape cameras and an alarm system to local police were the only security measures in existence.

Both parties agree that Mr. Berdeaux was a business invitee of the bank and was conducting banking business at the time of his injury.

On appeal, Mr. Berdeaux states the issue as follows: Do financial institutions in the business of transacting business by providing an office to pay and receive currency to a customer have a duty to protect customers from third persons who attempt armed robbery of the institution?

He acknowledges that this is a case of first impression in Alabama and concedes, as he must, that other states which have considered the issue have rejected various theories of liability. See annotation at 51 A.L.R.3d 711 (1971), and, particularly, Altepeter v. Virgil State Bank, 345 Ill.App. 585, 104 N.E.2d 334 (1952); and Nigido v. First National Bank, 264 Md. 702, 288 A.2d 127 (1972).

Mr. Berdeaux also concedes that, as a general rule, in the absence of a special relationship or circumstances, a private person has no duty to protect another from a criminal attack by a third person. Parham v. Taylor, 402 So.2d 884 (Ala.1981). He likewise concedes that there is no liability on the part of the bank for the criminal act of a third person when tested by the traditional rule governing the duty of a proprietor to a business invitee. Rather, he asks this Court to adopt a rule which imposes a special duty on the banking industry to protect its...