stating "[i]t is not necessary to allege that past crimes involving entry into unauthorized places are of the same general nature as the one which gave rise to the claim.... If a burglar may enter, so may a rapist."
How later courts described this case
- stating "[i]t is not necessary to allege that past crimes involving entry into unauthorized places are of the same general nature as the one which gave rise to the claim.... If a burglar may enter, so may a rapist."
- previous unlawful entry to a tenant's apartment from fire escape was notice to landlord of risk of tenant being raped in another unlawful entry
- plaintiff need not prove prior criminal assaults on premises because negligence of landlord created risk realized
- sexual assault by intruder who gained entry to plaintiffs apartment via window adjacent to fire escape
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
DONNELLY, Judge,
dissenting.
In my view, the jury system is without equal as an instrument of fairness. But juries should be allowed to function within a process designed for fairness. Adoption and application of a concept of pure comparative fault would expand the role of juries in the civil justice system and would make the matter of legal causation less important and less inscrutable. See Smith, Legal Cause in Actions of Tort, 25 Harv.L.Rev. 103 (1911).
The principal opinion holds that a landlord may be held liable to a tenant for criminal acts of a third person.
I would concur if I could persuade my brothers to permit the jury to allocate fault between the landlord, the tenant, and the criminal actor and to hold each of the three responsible “only in proportion to his fault”. Steinman v. Strobel, 589 S.W.2d 293, 296 (Mo. banc 1979) (Donnelly, J., dissenting). But I cannot. I respectfully dissent.