Lopez

Survivors and surviving family members of victims of the tragic 1984 massacre at McDonald’s restaurant in San Ysidro, California, appeal a summary judgment in favor of McDonald’s Corporation, and its franchisee, Bosherro 522 Partnership and Robert T. Colvin (McDonald’s). They challenge a trial court determination that as a matter of law McDonald’s had no duty to provide protection against mass murderous assaults. For the reasons which follow, we conclude such an event constitutes a hazard outside the boundaries of a restaurant’s general duty to protect its patrons from reasonably foreseeable criminal acts of third parties. Further, assuming this event were a hazard within the scope of McDonald’s protective duty, we conclude there exists no causal nexus between the proprietor’s breach of duty to protect its patrons from reasonably foreseeable criminal acts of third parties and the injuries suffered by plaintiffs here. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment.

I

Factual and Procedural Background

On a clear and sunny day, James Oliver Huberty entered McDonald’s restaurant in San Ysidro dressed in camouflage pants and armed with a 9 mm. semiautomatic rifle, a semiautomatic 9…