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Watkins v. Greyhound Bus Lines9/14/2004
In this wrongful-death action brought by the trustees for the heirs of the decedent, the district court granted summary judgment to Greyhound Bus Lines, Inc. (Greyhound), concluding that Greyhound could not have reasonably foreseen decedent's murder under the circumstances and therefore owed him no duty of protection from the criminal acts of third parties. Appellants argue that the district court erred by granting summary judgment, asserting that Greyhound could foresee, and therefore had a duty to protect decedent from, the criminal acts of third parties. Appellants also claim that there are genuine issues of material fact making the grant of summary judgment improper. Because the district court properly concluded that the criminal acts of the third parties were not reasonably foreseeable and that there were no genuine issues of material fact, we affirm.
FACTS
On the evening of January 24, 2000, Michael Warren, Jr. (decedent) went to the Greyhound bus terminal in Minneapolis to take the bus to Chicago . Two of decedent's roommates and one other acquaintance, Marvin Pate, Jr. (Pate), Ernest Moore (Moore), and Lovell Ross (Ross), discovered that decedent had taken some of their property from the apartment and went to the Minneapolis terminal to retrieve the allegedly stolen property.
When they arrived at the terminal, they parked their car in an unauthorized area and began opening the baggage compartments of the Chicago -bound bus. When two Greyhound employees, the terminal supervisor and the customer-service representative, confronted the three men, the three men explained that one of the passengers had stolen from them and that one of the bags in the luggage compartment contained the stolen property. The terminal supervisor got on the bus and announced that someone was taking a black duffle bag from the luggage compartment, but none of the passengers responded. The customer-service representative asked the three men to identify the person who they believed had taken their property. Pate and Moore boarded the bus in the company of the customer-service representative, but did not identify anyone. Pate told the terminal supervisor that finding the bag "saved [decedent's] life." As they were walking away from the bus, the terminal supervisor heard one of three men say that he saw decedent on the bus. After Moore had taken the black duffle bag and put it in his car, the customer-service representative asked the bus passengers if any of them had a bag like the one that was taken, but again, none of the passengers responded. After the three men drove off, the bus was cleared to leave the terminal.
When the bus arrived at the St. Paul terminal, additional passengers boarded. The bus driver went inside the terminal to count tickets for the new passengers and left the bus unattended with the door open for five to six minutes. Meanwhile, Pate, Moore, and Ross drove to an unidentified residence in St. Paul, switched cars, and got a gun. They drove to the St. Paul terminal and parked on the street. One of the men got out of the car and boarded the bus with a scarf pulled over his face. The bus driver got back onto the bus and looked to the rear of the bus to make sure everyone was seated. A few seconds later, the man who had gotten on the bus with the scarf over his face shot decedent in the head at close range and killed him.
Appellants brought this wrongful-death action against Greyhound to recover damages for the death of decedent, their son. Appellants allege in their complaint that Greyhound owed decedent a duty "to discover that the intentional, harmful act of a third person was being committed or was likely to be committed, give adequate warning to en
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