## Facts

- Bradley Smith, a paying resort guest attending a fraternity reunion, was at the Grandstand Bar inside Del Lago’s resort conference center.
- Two large groups (the reunion group and a wedding party) drank at the bar and engaged in hostile interactions for roughly ninety minutes before closing.
- The confrontation involved recurrent threats, cursing, and shoving among many intoxicated patrons, escalating in intensity over time.
- Bar employees observed or were aware of the escalating conflict but did not bring on-site security into the bar during the buildup.
- Del Lago had on-site security personnel (including off-duty law enforcement officers), but they were patrolling elsewhere and were not stationed in the bar.
- At approximately 2 a.m., as the bar attempted to close, a large fight erupted involving numerous patrons.
- Smith was knocked down and injured during the melee, sustaining significant injuries.
- A jury found Del Lago 51% responsible and Smith 49% responsible and awarded damages that were reduced under comparative responsibility; the court of appeals affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether a premises owner owes an invitee a duty to take reasonable steps to protect against assault by other patrons when the owner has actual, contemporaneous knowledge of a prolonged, escalating, and obvious risk of violence.
2. Whether legally sufficient evidence supported the jury’s findings that Del Lago breached any duty owed and that the breach proximately caused Smith’s injuries.
3. Whether the claim was properly submitted as premises liability rather than negligent activity.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Texas affirmed the judgment for Smith.
- The court held Del Lago owed Smith, an invitee, a duty to exercise ordinary care to make the premises reasonably safe in light of its actual, real-time knowledge of an escalating confrontation.
- The court held legally sufficient evidence supported findings that Del Lago failed to take reasonable measures and that this failure was a proximate cause of Smith’s injuries.
- The court held premises-liability submission was proper because the alleged negligence concerned a dangerous condition that developed and persisted on the premises, not an affirmative negligent act by Del Lago at the moment of injury.
- The court treated Smith’s decision to remain in the bar as a matter for comparative responsibility, not a complete bar to duty or causation.

## Legal Principles

- A premises owner owes invitees a duty to use ordinary care to reduce or eliminate unreasonable risks of harm the owner knows or should know about.
- For third-party criminal or intentional acts, foreseeability can be shown by actual, contemporaneous knowledge of a specific and escalating danger on the premises; prior similar incidents are not required when the risk is obvious in real time.
- When a premises owner has actual notice of an imminent risk of violence, the owner must take reasonable steps to make the premises safe; what is reasonable depends on the circumstances and may include summoning security, separating or ejecting hostile patrons, or curtailing service.
- Premises liability applies when the complained-of negligence arises from a dangerous condition on the property (including a dangerous environment created by unchecked patron conduct), rather than from the defendant’s ongoing affirmative activity.
- An invitee’s conduct in remaining in a risky setting generally goes to comparative responsibility rather than eliminating the premises owner’s duty as a matter of law.

## Conclusion

Because Del Lago’s staff had actual, contemporaneous awareness of a prolonged and escalating threat of violence among intoxicated patrons and failed to take reasonable protective measures before the fight erupted, the Texas Supreme Court held Del Lago could be liable under premises-liability principles and affirmed the judgment based on legally sufficient evidence of breach and proximate cause.


Del Lago Partners, Inc. v. Smith, 307 S.W.3d 762 (Tex. 2010)