## Facts

- A liquor store owner contracted with an alarm company to install a hold-up alarm system intended to notify police when a button was pressed.
- The alarm company’s employees failed to complete installation by not connecting the hold-up button wiring to the control panel and failed to test whether the system functioned.
- During an armed robbery lasting about ten minutes, the owner and an employee repeatedly pressed the alarm buttons, but no signal was transmitted and police were not notified.
- Evidence indicated that, if a signal had been received, police would typically have arrived within several minutes.
- A jury found negligent installation and testing, found proximate cause, and awarded damages; the trial court entered judgment after remittitur to $6,839.

## Issues

1. Whether legally and factually sufficient evidence supported a finding that negligent installation and failure to test was a proximate cause of the robbery losses.
2. Whether the robber’s criminal conduct was, as a matter of law, a superseding cause that relieved the alarm company of liability.
3. Whether evidence concerning likely police response time and the robber’s time on the premises was too speculative to support causation and the damage award.

## Decision

- The court affirmed the judgment for the store owner.
- The evidence supported findings that the alarm company negligently failed to connect and test the system.
- The jury could reasonably infer that a functioning alarm probably would have resulted in a timely police response and reduced or prevented the loss.
- The robbery was not a superseding cause because the risk of robbery was the very contingency the system was intended to address.
- The damages award of $6,839 was supported by the record and was not too remote or speculative.

## Legal Principles

- A service provider undertaking installation of a security system owes a duty to exercise reasonable care in performing the work; negligent performance may support tort liability.
- Proximate cause requires cause-in-fact and foreseeability; causation may be shown by reasonable inferences from evidence such as system capability, typical response times, and the duration of the event.
- A third party’s criminal act does not automatically break causation; it is not a superseding cause when it is foreseeable and within the scope of the risk the defendant’s undertaking was meant to address.
- Damages are not barred as speculative when the factfinder has a reasonable evidentiary basis to conclude the negligence probably increased the loss.

## Conclusion

The court upheld a negligence verdict against an alarm installer where incomplete installation and failure to test prevented transmission of a hold-up signal during a robbery, concluding that the robbery was a foreseeable event within the system’s purpose and that the evidence supported proximate cause and the damage award.


McCane-Sondock Prot. Sys., Inc. v. Emmittee, 540 S.W.2d 764 (Tex. Civ. App.—Fort Worth 1976, no writ)