holding that the day care center and lessor had no duty to prevent a driver from deliberately driving his car through a chain link fence and striking children in a playground because the "brutal criminal act" was unforeseeable
How later courts described this case
- holding that the day care center and lessor had no duty to prevent a driver from deliberately driving his car through a chain link fence and striking children in a playground because the "brutal criminal act" was unforeseeable
- holding child care center not liable for third person’s intentional criminal act of driving car onto playground and killing children because criminal act was unforeseeable when there had been no reported prior similar criminal acts at or near child care center
- explaining that on appeal from summary judgment, the evidence is viewed in the light most favorable to the appellant
- “decision to impose a duty of care to protect against criminal assaults requires balancing the foreseeability of the harm against the burden of the duty to be imposed”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
MORENO, J., Concurring.
I agree with the majority that the award of summary judgment in the child care center’s favor should be affirmed, and I agree with the “final observation” in the majority opinion that the record before us is “simply inadequate to make any automobile intrusion through the fence foreseeable.” (Maj. opn. ante, at p. 1150.) In my view, the circumstance that the event that caused the injuries in this case was not foreseeable is all that is necessary to resolve this case.
The majority focuses upon whether the child care center should be absolved from liability because the driver acted intentionally rather than negligently. This is an interesting question, but it is unnecessary to resolve it in this case. If it was foreseeable that children on the playground might be injured by automobiles accidentally entering the playground, and the child care center negligently failed to provide a sufficient barrier to protect the children against this danger, we would be faced with the vexing question of whether the child care center nevertheless should be absolved from liability in this case because the driver of the automobile that entered the playground acted intentionally rather than negligently. But we are not faced with that question in this case, because plaintiffs have not raised a triable issue of fact whether the child care center negligently failed to protect the children against automobiles entering the playground in any fashion.
We should not be eager to base a landowner’s liability for an injury caused by a third party upon the mental state of the third party. Such an approach could prove troublesome if the mental state of the third party were difficult to *1152 determine. Consider the example of a property owner who negligently fails to provide a sufficient barrier to prevent automobiles from entering a playground. If an automobile enters the playground and injures a child and the driver is killed, it may be difficult to determine whether the driver acted intentionally or negligently. I am hesitant to adopt a rule that hinges whether a landowner is liable upon the mental state of a third party that causes injury, rather than upon whether the landowner was negligent in failing to guard against the type of danger that caused the injury and whether such negligence was a proximate cause of the injury.
Werdegar, J., concurred.