Vega v. La Movida, Inc.

• Decision Date: 30 October 2008
• Docket Number: No. A08A1471.,A08A1471.
• Parties: VEGA et al. v. LA MOVIDA, INC.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

670 S.E.2d 116

294 Ga. App. 311

VEGA et al. v. LA MOVIDA, INC.

No. A08A1471.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

October 30, 2008.

Joshua A. Millican, Atlanta, for appellants.

Swift, Currie, McGhee & Hiers, Lynn M. Roberson, Atlanta, for appellee.

MIKELL, Judge.

On March 29, 2004, Carlos Vega and his brother, Leodegario, were shot inside a bar and restaurant owned by La Movida, Inc. Seeking to recover damages for injuries they sustained in the shooting, the Vegas sued La Movida, alleging that it negligently failed to provide adequate security inside the bar. The case went to trial and the jury returned a defense verdict. The Vegas appeal the judgment, asserting that the trial court erred in excluding evidence of prior criminal activity near the bar; in allowing La Movida to allege that a prior relationship existed between the shooter, Juan Aguirre, and the Vegas; in allowing La Movida's counsel to make improper remarks in closing; and in failing to prohibit La Movida from arguing that the shooter was solely responsible for the Vegas' injuries. Finding no error, we affirm.

Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict,¹ the record reflects that Carlos and Leodegario Vega, along with their brothers Fredi and Huber, were patronizing La Movida on the night of March 29, 2004. Carlos and Leodegario had frequented this bar on several prior occasions, and on this occasion, as on the earlier ones, upon entry they were patted down for weapons at the door by the two security guards stationed there by La Movida for that purpose. Sometime after 12:30 a.m., the brothers got into an altercation with Juan Aguirre, another customer. About five minutes into this dispute, Aguirre pulled a pistol from the waistband of his pants. Until that moment, this pistol had been concealed by Aguirre's shirttail. Aguirre immediately attempted to fire the weapon at Leodegario, but it misfired. Another customer, Misael Hernandez, attempted to disarm Aguirre, and Aguirre shot him in the arm. Carlos jumped on Aguirre and both fell to the floor; Aguirre shot Carlos as Carlos attempted to get up. Aguirre then shot Leodegario when he attempted to flee.

1. In their first enumeration of error, the Vegas argue more than one error. They challenge the trial court's exclusion of evidence of certain prior criminal acts; they argue that the trial court abused its discretion in failing to grant their motion for mistrial; and they contend that the trial court erred in failing to give certain jury charges they requested. OCGA § 5-6-40, however, requires that enumerations of error "shall set out separately each error relied upon." Thus,

[w]hen an appellant argues more than one error within a single enumeration, this [C]ourt in its discretion may elect to review none of the errors so enumerated or elect to review any one or more of the several assertions of error contained within the single enumeration and treat the remaining assertions of error therein as abandoned.²

We exercise our discretion to address these arguments.

(a) The Vegas contend that the trial court erred in excluding evidence of prior criminal acts in the vicinity of the bar. "The admissibility of evidence lies in the trial court's discretion, and the appellate court reviews evidentiary rulings under the abuse of discretion standard."³

In their complaint, the Vegas alleged that La Movida negligently failed to provide adequate security inside the bar, because when the security guards stationed at the entrance to the bar frisked Aguirre, they failed to discover the pistol that Aguirre shortly afterward used to shoot the Vegas. OCGA § 51-3-1 imposes upon an owner or occupier of land the duty to exercise ordinary care to keep its premises safe.⁴ This duty notwithstanding, "a property owner is not an insurer of an invitee's safety, and an intervening criminal act by a third party generally insulates a proprietor from liability unless such criminal act was reasonably foreseeable."⁵ Thus, as our Supreme Court ruled in Sturbridge Partners v. Walker,⁶ a proprietor's duty to exercise ordinary care to protect invitees against third-party criminal attacks "extends only to foreseeable criminal acts,"⁷ that is, acts which the proprietor had "reason to anticipate."⁸ "Accordingly, the incident causing the injury must be substantially similar in type to the previous criminal activities occurring on or near the premises so that a reasonable person would take ordinary precautions to protect his or her customers ... against the risk posed by that type of activity 34;⁹ As explained in Sturbridge:

In determining whether previous criminal acts are substantially similar to the occurrence causing harm, thereby establishing the foreseeability of risk, the court must inquire into the location, nature and extent of the prior criminal activities and their likeness, proximity or other relationship to the crime in question. While the prior criminal activity must be substantially similar to the particular crime in question, that does not mean identical. What is required is that the prior incident be sufficient to attract the landlord's attention to the dangerous condition which resulted in the litigated incident. Further, the question of reasonable foreseeability of a criminal attack is generally for a jury's determination rather than summary adjudication by the courts.¹⁰

The Vegas presented evidence of 18 instances of prior criminal activity in, on, or around the premises of the La Movida bar. The trial court denied La Movida's pre-trial motion in limine to exclude this evidence. At trial, however, the trial court admitted evidence of only three prior crimes. Of the fifteen prior crimes excluded by the judge, one occurred inside the bar (the theft of a patron's wallet on November 8, 2003), and fourteen occurred outside, either in the parking lot or in the general neighborhood. The judge excluded these prior crimes on the ground that they were not sufficiently similar to the March 29, 2004, attack upon the Vegas.

As to the November 2003 theft of a customer's wallet, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding evidence of this crime, because this crime against property did not give the proprietor notice sufficient to call his attention to the danger of violent crime inside the bar. ¹¹ Similarly, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the evidence of criminal activity that took place outside the bar.¹² As this Court noted in McCoy v. Gay,¹³ "[g]enerally, it may be said that it is not permissible, for the purpose of establishing whether a condition at one place is dangerous[,] to show conditions at places other than the one in question."¹⁴ In McCoy, the Court ruled that two prior crimes, which occurred in locations on the defendant inn's premises other than the parking lot where the litigated incident occurred, were not substantially similar to the litigated crime.¹⁵ The situation in the present case is analogous to that in McCoy. The excluded prior crimes took place in the parking lot, whereas the litigated crime occurred inside the bar. The evidence of crimes occurring in the parking lot did not show that La Movida was on notice that, in spite of its efforts to put security precautions in place at the entrance to its bar, a dangerous condition existed inside the bar.¹⁶

(b) The Vegas contend that the trial court erred in denying their motion for mistrial after the court excluded the evidence of prior criminal activity discussed in Division 1(a) above. Because the trial court had earlier denied La Movida's pre-trial motion in limine as to this same evidence, the Vegas assert that they were prejudiced by the court's subsequent exclusion of this evidence after the Vegas had referred to it in their opening statement. This argument fails, however, because a trial court may modify a ruling on a motion in limine.¹⁷

The Vegas further contend that the trial court based its denial of their motion for mistrial on a misunderstanding of OCGA § 9-11-41. Before the trial in this case took place, this statute had been amended to provide that a plaintiff may voluntarily dismiss his case at any time "before the first witness is sworn."¹⁸ Previously, the statute permitted dismissal "at any time before the plaintiff rests his case."¹⁹ The trial court's action in denying a mistrial was not, however, based on a misunderstanding of this statute, because the record reflects that the Vegas' counsel explained the amended provision of the statute to the court. "A trial court's denial of a motion for mistrial will not be disturbed absent a manifest abuse of discretion."²⁰ We find no abuse of discretion here.

(c) In the first, second, and fourth errors enumerated by the Vegas, they complain that the trial court erroneously gave certain jury charges requested by La Movida, and that the trial court improperly refused certain jury charges requested by the Vegas, dealing with the duty of care, the foreseeability of harm from criminal acts, personal animosity as a cause of injury, and superior knowledge of a dangerous condition. We have reviewed the charges given by the trial court and find that they were supported by the evidence presented at trial. Further, the charges as given adequately covered the substance of the Vegas' requested charges. Therefore, we find no error.²¹

2. Without citing authority, the Vegas assert on appeal that the trial court erred in allowing La Movida to argue that a pre-existing relationship existed between the Vegas and their attacker, Aguirre. However, there was evidence presented at trial that the Vegas knew Aguirre prior to the March 29 attack and that Aguirre and the Vegas came from neighboring small towns in Mexico. As this Court noted in Cook,²² "[e]ven if an intervening criminal act may have been reasonably foreseeable, ... the true ground of liability is the superior knowledge of the proprietor of the existence of a condition that may subject the...