Choy v. First Columbia Management, Inc.

• Citation: 676 F. Supp. 28
• Decision Date: 28 December 1987
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 86-1752-C.
• Parties: Alice Jae Hee CHOY, Plaintiff, v. FIRST COLUMBIA MANAGEMENT, INC., and 808 Memorial Drive Association, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

676 F. Supp. 28

Alice Jae Hee CHOY, Plaintiff, v. FIRST COLUMBIA MANAGEMENT, INC., and 808 Memorial Drive Association, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 86-1752-C.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

December 28, 1987.

John F. Donovan, Jr., Robert H. Quinn, Quinn & Morris, Boston, Mass., for plaintiff.

Martin J. Rooney, Curley & Curley, Boston, Mass., Robert A. Curley, Jr., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM

CAFFREY, Senior District Judge.

This action is before the Court on the defendants' motion for summary judgment. Jurisdiction is based on diversity. The plaintiff is a former tenant of the defendant, 808 Memorial Drive Associates, a limited partnership. The leased premises consisted of a unit in an apartment building located at 808 Memorial Drive in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Defendant First Columbia Management, Inc. was the manager of the apartment building. The complaint asserts claims for negligence and breach of contract arising from a criminal attack on the plaintiff occurring in her apartment.

At around 2:00 a.m. on October 26, 1985, the plaintiff, who had just returned home, heard a knock on her apartment door. Plaintiff went to the door and asked who was there. A man identified himself as a maintenance man who needed to get into plaintiff's apartment in order to fix a plumbing problem that was disturbing the tenants below. The plaintiff asked him why he could not wait until the morning to make the repairs but the man insisted that the problem had to be fixed right away. Plaintiff knew that a maintenance man would sometimes have to enter her apartment in order to repair plumbing breakdowns affecting adjacent apartments and the man at the door seemed knowledgeable about past plumbing problems within the building. Plaintiff unlocked her door to let him in. She did not ask him to show any identification nor did she call the building manager to verify the man's story. Once the door was unlocked, the man pushed his way in and brutally beat and raped the plaintiff. The attacker has never been apprehended.

Plaintiff has brought this action claiming that the defendants negligently failed to provide adequate security precautions and that this failure also amounted to a breach of defendants' contract with the plaintiff. Specifically, plaintiff alleges that the premises lacked twenty-four hour security guards and that locks on the doors to the building were constantly broken or unlocked providing easy access to the intruders.¹

To hold a defendant liable for negligence a plaintiff must prove that the defendant breached a duty of care owed to the plaintiff and that this breach caused the plaintiff harm. Therefore, the initial issue presented is whether the defendants had a duty to take any measures at all to protect the plaintiff from the criminal attack. As a general rule, the law does not recognize a duty to protect another from the criminal acts of a third party. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 314 (1965). This rule has historically been applied in the landlord-tenant context. See, e.g., Teall v. Harlow, 275 Mass. 448, 176 N.E. 533 (1931); Martin v. Usher, 55 Ill.App.3d 409, 13 Ill. Dec. 374, 371 N.E.2d 69 (1977).

Over the years, courts have moved away from the traditional rule against liability. The modern trend allows recovery when a landlord's failure to provide or maintain adequate security results in injury to the plaintiff through criminal attack by another. See Kline v. 1500 Massachusetts Avenue Corp., 439 F.2d 477, 482 (D.C.Cir. 1970); Trentacost v. Brussel, 82 N.J. 214, 412 A.2d 436, 445 (1980); Paterson v. Deeb, 472 So.2d 1210, 1220 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1985). The primary justification for imposing such a duty is the superior ability of the landlord to provide reasonable precautions against crime. See Kline v. 1500 Massachusetts Avenue Corp., 439 F.2d at 484. As between the landlord and tenant, the landlord is better equipped to take the necessary precautions to prevent harm because of the control he exercises over the common areas of the premises.

The parties have cited no cases that indicate that Massachusetts has expressly abrogated the common law rule in the landlord-tenant context. However, at least one case exists where a cause of action in negligence for a landlord's failure to provide adequate security was implicitly recognized by the Massachusetts Court of Appeals. See Brown v. LeClair, 20 Mass.App. 976, 482 N.E.2d 870 (1985). Cf. Mullins v. Pine Manor College, 389 Mass. 47, 449 N.E.2d 331 (1983) (college has a duty to provide adequate protection to its resident students against the criminal acts of third parties). I need not decide, however, whether the defendants owed such a duty to the plaintiff. For even if a landlord has a duty to protect a tenant from the criminal attacks of third parties, the plaintiff has produced no evidence from which a jury could rationally decide that the defendants' negligence caused the plaintiff's injuries. Sumary judgment is therefore appropriate.

In analyzing the evidence produced for summary judgment, a review of the applicable standards is helpful. A party moving for summary judgment has the burden of proving that no genuine issue of material fact exists and that he is entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law. However, a defendant who moves for summary judgment need not produce evidence which negates the allegations of the plaintiff's complaint. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2553, 91 L.Ed. 2d 265 (1986). Summary judgment is appropriate when, after adequate time for discovery, a party having the burden of proof at trial fails to make a showing sufficient to establish an essential element of his case and on which he will have the burden of proof at trial. In such a situation, all other facts, whether disputed or not, become immaterial because of the failure of proof on an essential element of plaintiff's case. Id. "There is no issue for trial unless there is sufficient evidence favoring the non-moving party for a jury to return a verdict for that party." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2511, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986).

Causation is an essential element of the plaintiff's case in an action for negligence. Proof that the defendant breached a duty owed to plaintiff is not enough to establish liability. To recover for her injuries, the plaintiff must prove a causal connection between the defendant's negligence and plaintiff's harm. Cannon v. Sears Roebuck & Co., 374 Mass. 739, 374 N.E.2d 582 (1978). The plaintiff is not required to exclude every possibility that her injuries may have resulted from causes other than the defendant's negligence but she must introduce evidence which makes it more probable than not that her injuries were due to the negligence of the defendant rather than some other cause. Mucha v. Northeastern Crushed Stone, Co., 307 Mass. 592, 596, 30 N.E.2d 870 (1941).

In the present case, the plaintiff has failed to produce evidence sufficient to establish causation, an essential element of her case. Plaintiff has maintained that the failure to provide twenty-four hour security guards constituted a lack of reasonable care on the part of the defendants in meeting their security obligations to the...