Totten

This is an appeal from the trial court’s judgment dismissing appellants’ action after respondent’s demurrer to the second amended complaint was sustained without leave to amend.

Respondent, More Oakland Residential Housing, Inc., a nonprofit corporation, owned and operated highrise apartment houses in Oakland, California. The purpose of the apartment complex was to replace slum dwellings in the ghetto area of the city and to provide inexpensive housing for low income people. The apartment house where the injury in dispute occurred was a part of the complex.

The events giving rise to the litigation took place on the night of December 22, 1973. At that time appellant Carolyn Jean Totten [“Carolyn”], a minor, was visiting her boy friend, a tenant of the apartment house. While she was sitting in the laundry room waiting for her boy friend, a fight erupted between John Chivars and Anthony Ottrix, two strangers. In the course of the fight Chivars chased Ottrix into the laundiy room and started firing a pistol. Several of the shots went astray and hit Carolyn.

In their second amended complaint, appellants alleged that respondent owed a duty to protect Carolyn from the…