Negligence – Third-party criminal conduct – Casino

Where a plaintiff was assaulted and robbed after driving away from a casino, his negligence claim against the defendant casino owner must be dismissed because the plaintiff’s harm was not reasonably foreseeable to the defendant.

“Plaintiff Edward Peduto (‘Peduto’ or ‘Plaintiff’) brings state-law tort claims for negligence … and negligent infliction of emotional distress (‘NEID’) … against UTGR, LLC f/k/a UTGR, Inc. (‘UTGR’ or ‘Defendant’), the legal entity that owns and operates Bally’s Twin River Lincoln Casino Resort (‘Twin River’), located at 100 Twin River Road, Lincoln, Rhode Island. …

“Plaintiff drove to Twin River on August 29, 2021, ‘for the purpose of enjoying the facility as a paying customer.’ … Upon his arrival, he parked his vehicle in the lot designated for patrons. … When he left the casino at the end of his visit, Plaintiff was followed to his parked car by individuals. This was captured on a security camera. … These same individuals continued to follow him as he began driving home to Massachusetts, … eventually following him from the Twin River parking lot in Rhode Island to a service plaza in North Lexington, Massachusetts. … At the service plaza, the individuals approached Plaintiff’s vehicle and brutally assaulted and robbed him. …

“Between January 2019 and Plaintiff’s assault, at least eight robberies and seventy-six other violent incidents happened at or near Twin River involving customers who were, in some instances, followed from the casino floor and then assaulted. …

“Defendant asserts that because the attack on Plaintiff was not reasonably foreseeable, it did not owe Plaintiff a duty of care and his claim therefore fails as a matter of law. Specifically, Defendant argues that Plaintiff’s harm was not reasonably foreseeable because it did not occur at or near Defendant’s premises, Defendant had ‘no reason to suspect the assailant’s ill intentions’ when they left the premises, and the previous incidents of violence at Twin River, without more, are not enough to make Plaintiff’s harm at a remote location foreseeable. … Plaintiff responds that Defendant was ‘negligent in its provision of security services,’ … and that because ‘Defendant was aware (or should have been aware) of [the] pervasiveness and repeated occurrence [of criminal conduct] at the Defendant’s premises,’ the harm he suffered was reasonably foreseeable and therefore gave rise to a duty of care. …

“With regard to a business, although business owners can, in some circumstances, owe a duty to patrons ‘to use reasonable care to prevent injury to [them] by third persons,’ this duty is generally limited to patrons at or near the premises, and, even then, only to prevent reasonably foreseeable harm. … Thus, although the occurrence of prior, similar criminal acts at or near the premises can be relevant when considering the issue of foreseeability, it is not dispositive. … ‘Fundamentally, the existence of a duty of care depends upon the foreseeability of a risk of harm that the defendant has an ability to prevent.’ …

“Even reading the Amended Complaint generously, Plaintiff’s negligence claim fails because he does not plead facts from which the Court can find that Defendant owed him a duty of care. The facts of the attack, while regrettable, are far removed from the rare circumstances under which Massachusetts courts have found that owners owed patrons a duty of care to prevent third-party criminal conduct, given that the attack having occurred approximately fifty miles from Defendant’s premises, well away from Defendant’s security or control. … Moreover, it is unclear what, if anything, Plaintiff is claiming Defendant could or should have reasonably done or foreseen to prevent the attack while Plaintiff was at or near the casino. The Amended Complaint pleads, at most, that Defendant’s security cameras caught Plaintiff and other individuals exiting the casino around the same time, without incident. … It does not allege that the would-be assailants did anything unlawful in the casino or in the parking lot, or that, other than happening to exit the casino around the same time as Plaintiff, they did anything to put anyone monitoring those security cameras on notice that they intended Plaintiff any harm. … While Plaintiff makes much ado about prior robberies and violent incidents ‘at or near’ Twin River to establish foreseeability, … Plaintiff points to no authority, and the Court is not aware of any, that establishes that notice of such prior incidents at or near a premises imposes on a business a sweeping duty to prevent third-party harm to customers who have voluntarily traveled miles from the premises, particularly without any indicia of foreseeability while the customer was on premises. As such, Plaintiff’s harm was not reasonably foreseeable to the Defendant, and Defendant’s motion to dismiss Count I is granted.”

Peduto v. UTGR, Inc. (Lawyers Weekly No. 02-536-24) (8 pages) (Burroughs, J.) (Civil Action No. 24-cv-11211-ADB) (Nov. 18, 2024).

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