Saelzler

We granted review in this case to consider important issues concerning the liability of apartment owners and other business enterprises to persons injured on their premises by the criminal acts of others, a liability based solely on the business owners’ negligent failure to provide adequate security measures to protect those who enter their property. The difficulty in resolving these issues is enhanced by the need to balance two important and competing policy concerns: society’s interest in compensating persons injured by another’s negligent acts, and its reluctance to impose unrealistic financial burdens on property owners conducting legitimate business enterprises on their premises.

In this case, we attempt to balance these interests consistent with prior case precedent. As will appear, we conclude (contrary to the Court of Appeal below) that the trial court properly granted summary judgment to defendants based on plaintiff’s failure adequately to demonstrate that defendants’ negligence was an actual, legal cause of her injuries. Here, plaintiff alleged she was assaulted on defendants’ premises by unknown assailants after she *767 attempted to deliver a package to an…

The majority upholds the trial court’s grant of summary judgment to defendants, at whose apartment complex plaintiff, a Federal Express employee who was trying to deliver a package, suffered a brutal sexual assault by three men who were never apprehended. Only by bending both the rules of summary judgment and the legal causation element of negligence can the majority reach its result. The holding places a virtually insurmountable barrier in the path of any plaintiff seeking to recover damages for injuries allegedly suffered as a result of a property owner’s unreasonable failure to provide security to protect against foreseeable third party criminal acts. I cannot and do not join in that holding.

I

After the sexual attack described above, plaintiff sued defendants, seeking • damages for personal injury. She alleged that defendants knew of dangerous persons frequenting their property, yet failed to maintain the premises in a safe condition, failed to provide adequate security, and failed to warn of unsafe conditions.

Defendants moved for summary judgment, asserting that plaintiff could not show that they had caused her injuries. In opposition, plaintiff presented the following…

I respectfully dissent.

The narrow question presented in this case, which comes to us on summary judgment, is whether defendants have demonstrated, with respect to the proximate cause element of plaintiff’s claim, that “there is no triable issue as to any material fact and that [defendants are] entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 437c, subd. (c).) The majority clouds the issue with repeated references to Sharon P. v. Arman, Ltd. (1999) 21 Cal.4th 1181 [ 91 Cal.Rptr.2d 35 , 989 P.2d 121 ] (Sharon P.) and Ann M. v. Pacific Plaza Shopping Center (1993) 6 Cal.4th 666 [ 25 Cal.Rptr.2d 137 , 863 P.2d 207 ] (Ann M), cases in which we were concerned with policy-laden questions about the existence and scope of a landlord’s duty to maintain reasonably safe premises. There, we articulated limitations on such duties, thus providing California property owners with significant protection against potential premises liability. But defendants in this case do not contest the trial court’s finding—based on overwhelming evidence—that they owed and breached a duty of care toward plaintiff.

The majority thus mistakenly identifies our primary concern in this case as “the…

Horvitz & Levy, Frederic D. Cohen, Andrea M. Gauthier, Encino, and Orly Degani, San Francisco, for the University of Southern California, the University of California, California State University, the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University, California Institute of Technology, Loma Linda University, Pepperdine University, Sutter Health, State Farm General Insurance Company, Truck Insurance Exchange, Fire Insurance Exchange, Mid-Century Insurance Company, Civic Property and Casualty Company, Exact Property and Casualty Company and Neighborhood Spirit Property and Casualty Company as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendants and Respondents.

We granted review in this case to consider important issues concerning the liability of apartment owners and other business enterprises to persons injured on their premises by the criminal acts of others, a liability based solely on the business owners' negligent failure to provide adequate security measures to protect those who enter their property. The difficulty in resolving these issues is enhanced by the need to balance two important and competing policy concerns: society's interest in compensating persons injured…