## Facts

- A 12-year-old girl (L.A.C.) visited a Kansas City shopping mall with a 16-year-old boy (D.R.) whom she knew from school.
- After attending a movie, they walked through the mall and went to an exterior stairwell/area near the theater or parking structure.
- D.R. sexually assaulted and raped L.A.C.
- D.R. was known to L.A.C. but unknown to the mall entities and the mall’s private security contractor; he was not their employee or agent.
- L.A.C. alleged the mall entities failed to provide adequate security, warn of dangers, and take reasonable steps to protect invitees from foreseeable criminal acts.
- L.A.C. alleged the security contractor negligently performed security services and failed to protect her from the assault.
- The record included evidence of prior criminal incidents at or near the mall, including property crimes and some assaults.

## Issues

1. Whether the mall owners/managers owed an invitee a duty to protect or warn against rape by a third party known to the invitee but unknown to the defendants, based on prior criminal incidents on or near the premises.
2. Whether the contracted security company owed the invitee an independent tort duty, based on its security-services contract, to protect her from this criminal assault.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Missouri affirmed summary judgment for all defendants.
- The court held the rape was not reasonably foreseeable as a matter of law; therefore, the mall entities owed no duty to protect L.A.C. from D.R.’s criminal act.
- The court held the security contractor likewise owed no duty to L.A.C. under the circumstances; its contract did not create a tort duty to protect invitees from this unforeseeable assault.

## Legal Principles

- A possessor of land is not an insurer of business invitees’ safety against criminal acts of third parties.
- A duty to protect invitees from third-party crime arises only when the specific criminal conduct is reasonably foreseeable.
- Reasonable foreseeability typically requires prior crimes that are sufficiently numerous, recent, and similar in type to the incident at issue.
- Duty is a question of law for the court; absent a legally foreseeable risk, negligence cannot be submitted to a jury.
- A security contractor’s contractual obligations do not automatically create a tort duty to invitees; a tort duty to third parties depends on the scope of the undertaking and whether the injury is within the foreseeable risks the undertaking was meant to address.

## Conclusion

The court held that prior criminal activity at or near the mall did not make foreseeable the rape of a minor by a companion she knew, and imposing liability would improperly convert the mall and its security contractor into insurers of patron safety; summary judgment for all defendants was affirmed.


L.A.C. v. Ward Parkway Shopping Ctr. Co., 75 S.W.3d 247 (Mo. 2002) (en banc)