Section 13.13 Specific Prior Crimes on Premises

• Library: Tort Law 2016

4. (§13.13) Specific Prior Crimes on Premises

When specific prior crimes have been committed on the landowner’s premises, the landowner may owe invitees a duty of protection and may be liable for breach of that duty. Simply alleging that the landowner is located in a "high crime" area is insufficient. SeeMeadows v. Friedman R.R. Salvage Warehouse, A Div. of Friedman Bros. Furniture Co., 655 S.W.2d 718 (Mo. App. E.D. 1983) (a customer assaulted and shot on the premises of a retail outlet in a "high crime" area had not alleged sufficient facts to give rise to a duty on the part of the defendant); Warren v. Lombardo’s Enters., Inc., 706 S.W.2d 286 (Mo. App. E.D. 1986) (a restaurant owner owed no duty to protect a customer who was shot and robbed on the restaurant parking lot when prior violent crimes, chiefly armed robberies of financial institutions, had taken place in the general neighborhood but not on the defendant’s premises; the defendant’s provision of valet parking on a less distant lot did not give rise to this duty).

In Claybon v. Midwest Petroleum Co., 819 S.W.2d 742, 747 (Mo. App. E.D. 1991), the court observed that: "For the same reasons special facts do not exist simply because an area is one of high crime, special facts do not exist simply because a business is alleged to belong to a class which may be a ‘frequent’ target of crime." In Claybon, a case arising out of a fatal shooting during a service station holdup, summary judgment for the service station owner and operator was affirmed. There had been no criminal activity on the premises during the six days for which the defendant had owned the station, and the defendant had no knowledge of criminal activity for any prior period. The court found that there was no special relationship imposing a duty on the defendant to protect the decedent, who was not a service station employee but a member of the public, from the criminal acts of others. An affidavit of a retired city police officer stating that self-service gas stations without security booths restricting access by the public to the cash register were frequent targets of robbery, assault, murder, and other violent crimes in the St. Louis metropolitan area between 1975 and 1985 was insufficient to create a fact issue.

In Brown v. National Supermarkets, Inc., 679 S.W.2d 307 (Mo. App. E.D. 1984), after remand, Brown v. National Super Mkts., Inc., 731 S.W.2d 291 (Mo. App. E.D. 1987), the court held that a business owner may have a duty to...