## Facts

- Betty Lou Roberson managed and worked as cashier at the Delta Mart convenience store in Brewton, Alabama, located about 100 yards from Allied Foundry and Machinery Company’s plant.
- Allied employed prison inmates, including Robert Lee Watts and Milton C. Doss, through a work-release program from Fountain Correctional Facility.
- On the night of November 10–11, 1981, Watts and Doss were assigned to Allied’s third shift (11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m.).
- Roberson arrived at Delta Mart around 2:00 a.m. and worked alone.
- Watts and Doss left Allied’s premises during breaks and visited Delta Mart three times: (1) bought coffee; (2) returned and purchased wine; (3) returned again, robbed Roberson, severely assaulted her, and attempted to rape her before fleeing when customers intervened.
- Police later apprehended Watts and Doss at Allied’s plant.
- Roberson presented evidence that Allied officials knew or strongly suspected Watts and Doss were drinking that night and had reason to believe they had previously drunk on the job.
- Allied permitted work-release inmates, like other employees, to leave the premises during breaks.
- Roberson sued Allied for negligence, alleging Allied had actual or constructive notice of the inmates’ intoxication and dangerousness and owed a duty to protect foreseeable nearby third parties from resulting criminal acts.

## Issues

1. Whether a private employer of work-release inmates owes a legal duty to supervise or control those inmates to protect third parties from the inmates’ criminal acts committed off-premises (or while away on breaks), based on alleged foreseeability from intoxication and prior conduct.
2. Whether foreseeability of harm from an employee’s potential criminal conduct, without a recognized special relationship or legal mandate, is sufficient to create a negligence duty under Alabama law.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Alabama affirmed summary judgment for Allied.
- The court held Allied owed no legal duty to protect Roberson from the intentional criminal acts of Watts and Doss under the circumstances presented.
- The court declined to create a new tort duty imposing on private employers of work-release inmates an obligation to protect the public from the inmates’ future criminal conduct.

## Legal Principles

- In Alabama, a person generally has no duty to protect another from the intentional criminal acts of third parties absent a recognized special relationship or other specific legal basis for imposing such a duty.
- The existence of a negligence duty is a question of law for the court and depends on legal precedent and policy considerations, not solely on the foreseeability of harm.
- A private employer’s status as an employer of work-release inmates, without statutory directive or established common-law authority, does not by itself impose a public-protection duty comparable to custodial duties associated with the state’s supervision of inmates.
- Foreseeability of risk, standing alone, does not create a legal duty to control employees to prevent off-premises criminal acts.

## Conclusion

The Alabama Supreme Court held that, even if Allied could anticipate some risk based on the inmates’ drinking and freedom to leave on breaks, Alabama law did not impose on a private employer of work-release inmates a duty to protect nearby third parties from the inmates’ intentional criminal acts, and summary judgment for Allied was affirmed.


Roberson v. Allied Foundry & Mach. Co., 447 So. 2d 720 (Ala. 1984)