MLM Counties News. Notices. Need-to-know Information.
An appeals court upheld a $20.5 million award to a man who suffered a brain injury after being beaten by a group of people in the parking lot of a south St. Louis Jack in the Box.
Generally, business owners don’t have a duty to protect customers and potential customers “from the criminal acts of third parties,” a three-judge panel of the Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District said in the opinion released Tuesday.
But Missouri law has an exception for special facts and circumstances, including when the danger could have been foreseen, and that was the case in the June 20, 2010, beating of Ali Aziz, according to the opinion.
Four people pleaded guilty to assault after the 5 a.m. attack that put Aziz into a coma for at least two months. A fifth defendant was acquitted.
The restaurant owner asserted the attack lasted only 90 seconds and it took police nine minutes to arrive. But the attackers were members of a group of about nine people who had been in the parking lot of the restaurant at 1807 Gravois Road for up to an hour, dancing and climbing on cars, according to the opinion. The restaurant’s internal policies recognize the dangers of late-night loitering and disruptive activity and require that action be taken immediately, but no employees called police or security before the attack.
“Therefore, the duration of the actual fight is irrelevant, because Defendant had notice of the potential danger and sufficient time to react and prevent Plaintiff’s injury before the fight even began,” Judge Robert Clayton III wrote.
Judges Patricia L. Cohen and Roy L. Richter agreed with the opinion, which affirmed St. Louis Circuit Judge Thomas Grady’s denial of a motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict and for a new trial.
The appeals court also said that even though Aziz hadn’t purchased food, he was a potential customer and thus an “invitee” owed protection by the business. The judges also rejected as a “hypertechnical reading of the verdict director” a defense argument that the restaurant didn’t have notice of potential danger to Aziz specifically because he was only on the property for a short time.
The full verdict was $25 million, but the jury assessed 18 percent of the fault against Aziz. It was the fourth largest verdict in the state in 2013, according to Missouri Lawyers Weekly’s Verdicts & Settlements database.
The case is Ali Aziz vs. Jack in the Box, Eastern Division, LP, and Jack in the Box, Inc., ED101003. The full text of the opinion can be read here.
