## Facts

- Philomene (also spelled Philomena) Williams was an invitee in a large office building in New Orleans, Louisiana, reporting for her first day of work in March 1957.
- During the workday, Williams went to a women’s bathroom/dressing-room area in the building.
- A young man followed her into the room, produced a knife, and forced her to submit to a sexual assault.
- Williams claimed physical injury, shock, and serious emotional and psychological harm requiring treatment.
- Evidence at trial indicated that other assaults and safety incidents had occurred in the building before Williams’s attack, and that building personnel had knowledge of at least some prior incidents; only some incidents had been reported to police.
- Williams sued the building’s owner and operator and their insurer, Employers Liability Assurance Corp., in federal district court in New Orleans, invoking Louisiana tort law and seeking damages for the attack.
- At trial, the court instructed the jury using a negligence standard focused on whether the building owners exercised reasonable and ordinary care to maintain safe premises.
- Williams requested a jury instruction imposing absolute liability under Louisiana Civil Code article 177 (concerning damage caused by things thrown or poured out of a building into a street or public road), but the trial court refused.
- The jury returned a verdict for the defendants, and Williams appealed to the Fifth Circuit.

## Issues

1. Whether Louisiana Civil Code article 177 (liability for “whatever is thrown out of [a] house into the street or public road”) applies to impose absolute liability on a building owner/operator for a sexual assault committed inside the building by a third party.
2. Whether the district court erred by refusing to instruct the jury on article 177 and instead charging only negligence principles.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit affirmed the judgment for the defendants.
- The court held that article 177 was inapplicable because Williams’s injury was not caused by anything thrown or poured from the building into a street or public road, and the harm occurred inside the premises.
- Because article 177 did not apply, the district court properly refused to give an absolute-liability instruction based on that article.
- The negligence-based instructions were an appropriate framework for the jury’s consideration of the building owners’ conduct, and the defense verdict stood.

## Legal Principles

- Louisiana Civil Code article 177 is a specific, historically rooted strict-liability rule addressing harm caused by items thrown or poured from a house into a street or public road.
- Article 177’s reference to the “superintendence and police” of a house explains the rationale for liability in the “thrown or poured” setting; it does not create a general strict-liability rule for all wrongful acts occurring inside a building.
- When a plaintiff seeks recovery for harm caused by criminal acts of a third party occurring on premises, the claim is generally evaluated under negligence concepts (reasonable care, breach, and causation), rather than under article 177’s narrow strict-liability rule.
- A trial court does not err by refusing a requested jury instruction that rests on a legal theory inapplicable to the facts proved at trial.

## Conclusion

Williams v. Employers Liability Assurance Corp., Ltd. held that Louisiana Civil Code article 177—limited to damage caused by things thrown or poured from a building into a street or public road—does not impose absolute liability for an indoor sexual assault by a third-party intruder; the district court correctly instructed the jury on negligence, refused the requested article 177 instruction, and the Fifth Circuit affirmed the defense verdict.


Williams v. Employers Liability Assurance Corp., Ltd., 269 F.2d 569 (1961)