## Facts

- A 24-hour convenience store in Auburn, Maine was operated by Kenyon Oil Co., Inc. (doing business as Xtra Mart).
- On May 4, 1994, Albert F. Kaechele entered the store to buy a lottery ticket and visit his wife, a clerk working that night.
- Customer Madrid Roddy attempted to buy cigarettes; a clerk refused to sell without checking identification.
- Roddy became increasingly agitated, yelled obscenities, pounded the service counter for about fifteen minutes, then left, slammed the door, and pounded on the store’s front window.
- A customer suggested that the clerks call the police, but no call was made before customers left the store.
- When Kaechele and another customer went outside, an argument occurred in the parking lot, and Roddy struck Kaechele, causing severe facial injuries.
- After the assault, the store called the police; an officer arrived within about two minutes.
- At trial, evidence was admitted that the store frequently called police and that many calls involved violent matters; the court excluded a detailed list of prior calls and details of certain prior incidents as unfairly prejudicial.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court abused its discretion under Maine Rule of Evidence 403 by limiting evidence about prior police calls and specific prior incidents at the store.
2. Whether sufficient evidence supported the jury’s findings on negligence, foreseeability, and proximate cause such that denial of judgment as a matter of law or a new trial was proper.

## Decision

- The Law Court affirmed the judgment for Kaechele.
- The trial court did not abuse its discretion by excluding detailed prior-incident evidence and a comprehensive police-call list while allowing generalized evidence of frequent police involvement and violence-related calls.
- The evidence permitted a reasonable jury to find the store breached its duty of reasonable care by not summoning police during the escalating disturbance.
- The evidence also permitted a reasonable jury to find proximate cause, including an inference that an earlier call could have resulted in police arrival before the parking-lot assault.
- The assailant’s criminal act was not treated as a superseding cause as a matter of law because the risk of violence was within the scope of what made the failure to act negligent.

## Legal Principles

- A business owes invitees a duty of reasonable care to protect against reasonably foreseeable criminal acts of third parties under the circumstances.
- Foreseeability may be supported by both the premises’ history of prior disturbances and the immediate, escalating behavior observed during the incident.
- Under Maine Rule of Evidence 403, relevant evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice; trial courts have broad discretion in that balancing.
- Proximate cause may be found when the harm results from the same general type of risk that made the defendant’s conduct negligent; a third party’s intentional act does not automatically sever causation.

## Conclusion

The Law Court upheld a jury verdict that a convenience store could be liable for injuries caused by a third party when escalating conduct made violence reasonably foreseeable and employees failed to take reasonable steps such as promptly calling police, and it approved limiting highly prejudicial details of prior incidents while admitting general notice and foreseeability evidence.


Kaechele v. Kenyon Oil Co., 747 A.2d 167 (Me. 2000)