Funchess v. Cecil Newman Corp., C8-00-90.

• Decision Date: 23 August 2001
• Docket Number: No. C8-00-90.,C8-00-90.
• Citation: 632 N.W.2d 666
• Parties: Janice FUNCHESS, Trustee for the Heirs of J.W. Haynes, decedent, Respondent, v. CECIL NEWMAN CORP., et al., Petitioner, Appellants.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

632 N.W.2d 666

Janice FUNCHESS, Trustee for the Heirs of J.W. Haynes, decedent, Respondent, v. CECIL NEWMAN CORP., et al., Petitioner, Appellants.

No. C8-00-90.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

August 23, 2001.

William F. Mohrman, Mohrman & Kaardal, P.A., Minneapolis, for appellant.

John O. Murrin, Christopher A. LaNave, Murrin Law Firm, Edina, for respondent.

Rebecca L. Rom, Chad M. Oldfather, Faegre & Benson, LLP, Minneapolis, for amicus curiae, Family Housing Fund.

Ann E. Juergens, William Mitchell Law Clinic, St. Paul, for amicus curiae, Mid-Minnesota Legal Assistant, Inc.

John G. Horner, Horner Law Office, Savage, for amicus curiae, Minnesota Multi-Housing Association.

Heard, considered, and decided by the court en banc.

OPINION

LANCASTER, Justice.

At approximately 11 p.m. on May 12, 1995, three unidentified intruders entered the apartment leased by J.W. Haynes, Jr. at the Cecil Newman Plaza apartment complex and shot Haynes, killing him. The killers were never apprehended. Respondent Janice Funchess, Haynes' mother and trustee for his heirs, filed suit alleging that Haynes' death resulted from negligence by appellants Cecil Newman Corporation and Gravzy Group LLC (collectively, Newman/Gravzy), owner and management company, respectively, of Cecil Newman Plaza. The district court granted Newman/Gravzy's motion for summary judgment, concluding that they had no duty to protect Haynes from the criminal acts of third parties. The court of appeals reversed and remanded, holding that the defendants owed common law, statutory, and contractual duties to Haynes, and that there were genuine issues of material fact regarding breach of duty and proximate cause. We reverse.

In early April 1995, J.W. Haynes and his girlfriend, Angela Bennett, leased a unit in an apartment building that is part of the Cecil Newman Plaza apartment complex in Minneapolis. The apartment building had two floors, each with four apartments and a hallway running down its center. The entrance to each apartment was a metal door in a metal frame, inserted into a concrete block wall, and the apartment door had a deadbolt lock and a peephole into the hallway. Each apartment also had a buzzer/intercom system linked to the front security door that allowed visitors to buzz a given apartment and talk with the resident over the intercom. The resident could then, by pushing a button, unlock the front security door and admit the visitor into the apartment building ("buzzing" the guest into the apartment building).

The entrances to the buildings at Cecil Newman Plaza have existed in two designs. Which design was in place on May 12, 1995, is an undetermined question of fact. In the older design, the front entrance had a see-through thick glass door that opened from the outside into a vestibule that contained another thick glass door—the security door. This inner security door had a keyed lock; a buzzer/intercom box was located next to the door. The rear entrance was designed in the same manner but had no buzzer/intercom box. The newer design eliminates the vestibule and internal door: there is a single locked security door at each entrance that opens directly to the outside. In this new design, the buzzer/intercom is located next to the front security door, on the exterior wall of the apartment building. The new and old designs both have windows above and along the side of the exterior door that allow outside observers to see into the hallways. Once inside either security door, in either design, entrants ascend a short stairway to the first level. The stairway continues to the second floor. For an entrant through the front door of the building, Haynes' apartment was the first door on the left on the first floor.

Haynes' mother and his two sisters filed affidavits stating that they visited Haynes' apartment several times before his death and that in the weeks prior to May 12 they were all able to open both the rear external door and the rear internal (security) door without help and without a key. In her affidavit, one of Haynes' sisters states that on May 12 she was twice able to step through (without opening) the rear external door, which had glass broken out of it, then pull open the rear security door without using a key or having it opened for her. Bennett states in her affidavit that for three weeks before May 12, and "on May 12, 1995 prior to 10 p.m." the rear security door could be opened without a key. All of these affiants state that on none of these occasions were there objects propping or holding open the rear internal security door.¹

Bennett states in her affidavit that beginning approximately a month before Haynes' death the intercom portion of the intercom/buzzer system in their apartment did not work correctly. Bennett and Haynes could hear people buzz their apartment and could open the front security door from the panel in their apartment, but they could not communicate with visitors over the intercom. Bennett states in her affidavit that she reported the problem to a maintenance person and understood that the intercom would be fixed. For purposes of their summary judgment motion, Newman/Gravzy accept the allegation that the intercom system in the Haynes apartment did not function properly.

Section ten of the Cecil Newman Plaza lease agreement signed by Haynes and Bennett provides, among other things, that the landlord agrees to "maintain the common areas and facilities in safe condition" and to "make necessary repairs with reasonable promptness." Bennett states in her affidavit that she read this section of the lease and believed that it required the landlord to maintain and repair the existing security measures. Accordingly, she and Haynes expected the security doors to work properly and she expected that the rear security door would be fixed.

Funchess submitted the affidavit of David Rumpza, a 28-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department, in which Rumpza stated that the area surrounding Haynes' apartment building was considered a high crime area from 1992 to July 26, 1999, the date of the affidavit.² Officer Rumpza's affidavit also offers his opinion that a security door that could be opened without a key would increase the "likelihood of crime, including violent crime," in the building.

Randy Gott was hired as a private security officer to provide security at Cecil Newman Plaza; he was on duty on the evening of May 12, 1995. Gott made his rounds that evening, and to his best recollection both security doors on Haynes' apartment building were locked and working. He does not recall any glass broken or missing from the security doors that night. At approximately 11 p.m. Gott observed three men running from Haynes' apartment building. He chased the men, but they escaped. Gott returned to the apartment complex and, along with some police officers who arrived shortly thereafter, he entered Haynes' apartment. Gott and the police who were at the scene concur that there were no signs of forced entry into the apartment.

Bennett witnessed the homicide and was interviewed by the police. An investigating officer states in an affidavit that Bennett told the police that Haynes had buzzed into the building the men who later murdered him and had opened the door to the apartment to let them in. In her own affidavit, Bennett states that Haynes did not buzz anyone in. She states that Haynes "was going outside to do something or look to see who had buzzed our apartment (since we could not talk through our intercom or listen through our intercom)" when she saw someone force an arm through the narrow opening at the door. Three men then forced their way into the apartment and one of the men shot Haynes. Bennett states in her affidavit that the men must have come through the back door, as the front security door was working properly and could be opened only by key.

Bennett attributes the discrepancy between her affidavit and what she told the police as to whether or not Haynes had buzzed anyone into the building to the fact that she was interviewed by the police about an hour after the shooting she had witnessed:

I was in shock, I was scared * * *. I was in a "trance", confused. * * * I kept asking the police if [Haynes] was dead. * * * I believe I did mention to the police about buzzing people in that night * * * but I was referring to earlier times that night when we had buzzed people in. Maybe I was not clear or they misunderstood me or I misunderstood their questions. I had never been in a situation like that before * * *. I was too shook up to deal with the situation very well.

As trustee for Haynes' heirs, Funchess filed suit alleging that Newman/Gravzy were negligent in their failure to repair the broken security door and intercom system and that this negligence, which allowed the killers to enter the building and Haynes' apartment, resulted in Haynes' death. Newman/Gravzy moved for summary judgment, claiming that Funchess could not establish facts demonstrating that Newman/Gravzy owed a duty to Haynes, breached any such duty, or, if any duty existed and was breached, that the murder did not result from an intervening cause. They argued that for Funchess to establish a duty to protect, she had to show there was a special relationship between Haynes and Newman/Gravzy and that Haynes' death was a foreseeable result of the breach of any such duty. In addition, Newman/Gravzy argued that Funchess was required to offer specific evidence showing that the broken intercom system and allegedly broken lock on the rear security door had actually played a role in Haynes' death. Funchess argued that Newman/Gravzy had breached a duty to repair the rear security door lock and the intercom in the Haynes/Bennett apartment. She also argued that she need not establish actual, but only proximate, causation and laid out a possible causal chain linking a failure to repair the security door and intercom to Haynes' death: Some or all of Haynes'...