Lopez

Plaintiff Jose Antonio Lopez (Lopez) appeals a judgment in a premises liability action entered in favor of defendant Consuelo Baca (Baca) after the trial court granted Baca’s motion for summary judgment. Lopez, who was shot in the head by another patron while attending a nightclub Baca owned, sued Baca for negligence, claiming Baca unreasonably failed to provide security guards to check customers for weapons before allowing them to enter the premises. The trial court concluded Baca did not owe a duty to provide security guards because the shooting in this case was unforeseeable as a matter of law. We affirm.

Factual and Procedural Background

1. Facts

The facts set forth in the parties’ separate statements are undisputed. Baca, owner of El Castillo Nite Club (the club), hired women to solicit the club’s *1012 male patrons to buy drinks for them at an elevated price and then paid the women a commission from the proceeds of each sale. 1 In February 2000 a woman approached Lopez at the club and asked him to buy her a beer. When Lopez refused to pay the elevated price, the woman called Lopez a derogatory name and returned to her male companion. Soon thereafter, the woman’s…

I regretfully but respectfully dissent from what I view as a miscarriage of justice. As the majority opinion itself reminds us, appellate courts are instructed to review the trial court’s grant of summary judgment de novo and in doing so to consider all of the evidence the parties offered in connection with the motion (except that which the [trial] court properly excluded). 1 This means we have an affirmative duty to consider all the evidence the parties tendered unless we find the evidence the trial court excluded was properly excluded under operative principles of the law of evidence. Thus, whether appellant formally challenged the trial court’s evidentiary rulings in his briefs to this court is irrelevant. In our de novo review of the summary judgment we cannot properly ignore evidence appellant tendered to the trial court unless we conclude it was properly excluded by the trial court.

It clearly would have been the better and safer practice for appellant to have included a specific section in his opening brief labeled “Erroneous Evidentiary Rulings.” To do so, however, appellant would have to have asked permission to file a brief much longer than the Rules of Court ordinarily…

Plaintiff Jose Antonio Lopez (Lopez) appeals a judgment in a premises liability action entered in favor of defendant Consuelo Baca (Baca) after the trial court granted Baca's motion for summary judgment. Lopez, who was shot in the head by another patron while attending a night club Baca owned, sued Baca for negligence, claiming Baca unreasonably failed to provide security guards to check customers for weapons before allowing them to enter the premises. The trial court concluded Baca did not owe a duty to provide security guards because the shooting in this case was unforeseeable as a matter of law. We affirm.

The facts set forth in the parties' separate statements are undisputed. Baca, owner of El Castillo Nite Club (the club), hired women to solicit the club's male patrons to buy drinks for them at an elevated price and then paid the women a commission from the proceeds of each sale. [1] In February 2000 a woman approached Lopez at the club and asked him to buy her a beer. When Lopez refused to pay the elevated price, the woman called Lopez a derogatory name and returned to her male companion. Soon thereafter, the woman's male companion left the club, returned with…