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Mellon Mortgage Co. v. Holder9/9/1999
On Petition for Review from the Court of Appeals for the Fourteenth District of Texas
Argued on January 12, 1999
Justice Abbott delivered a plurality opinion, in which Justice Hecht and Justice Owen join.
Justice Enoch filed a Concurring opinion.
Justice Baker filed a Concurring opinion.
Justice O'Neill filed a Dissenting opinion, in which Chief Justice Phillips and Justice Hankinson join.
Justice Gonzales did not participate in the decision.
While driving late one night in the downtown Houston area, Angela Holder was stopped for an alleged traffic violation by Calvin Potter, an on-duty Houston police officer. Potter took Holder's insurance and identification cards and told her to follow his squad car. Holder followed Potter several blocks to a parking garage owned by Mellon Mortgage Company. Once inside the garage, Potter sexually assaulted Holder in his squad car.
Holder sued Mellon and the City of Houston but did not sue her attacker. The trial court granted summary judgment for Mellon and the City on all of Holder's claims. The court of appeals affirmed the summary judgment in favor of the City on the basis of sovereign immunity. With regard to Holder's claims against Mellon, the court of appeals affirmed the summary judgment on Holder's negligence per se claim, but reversed on the negligence, gross negligence, and loss of consortium claims. On petition for review to this Court, Mellon claims, among other things, that it owed no legal duty to Holder. Because we hold that it was not foreseeable to Mellon that a person would be accosted several blocks from Mellon's garage and forced to drive to that garage where she would be sexually assaulted, Mellon owed no duty to Holder to prevent the attack. Accordingly, we reverse the court of appeals' judgment and render judgment that Holder take nothing.
I.
With regard to criminal acts of third parties, property owners owe a duty to those who may be harmed by the criminal acts only when the risk of criminal conduct is so great that it is both unreasonable and foreseeable. See Timberwalk Apartments, Partners, Inc. v. Cain, 972 S.W.2d 749, 756 (Tex. 1998). We focus our attention in this case on "foreseeability." For most premises liability cases, the foreseeability analysis will be shaped by determining whether the plaintiff was an invitee, a licensee, or a trespasser. Because Holder was an unforeseeable victim regardless of her status, it is unnecessary to determine into which of the three categories she falls. Instead, we focus on general foreseeability principles that limit the scope of the defendant's duty in this case.
We have repeatedly stated that " oreseeability requires only that the general danger, not the exact sequence of events that produced the harm, be foreseeable." Walker v. Harris, 924 S.W.2d 375, 377 (Tex. 1996); see also Nixon v. Mr. Property Management Co., 690 S.W.2d 546, 551 (Tex. 1985). We have also frequently stated a two-prong test for foreseeability:
t is not required that the particular accident complained of should have been foreseen. All that is required is "that the injury be of such a general character as might reasonably have been anticipated; and that the injured party should be so situated with relation to the wrongful act that injury to him or to one similarly situated might reasonably have been foreseen." Id. at 551 (citations and emphasis omitted); see also Texas Cities Gas Co. v. Dickens, 168 S.W.2d 208, 212 (Tex. 1943); San Antonio & A. P. Ry. Co. v. Behne, 231 S.W. 354, 356 (Tex. Comm'n App. 1921, judgm't adopted).
Thus, we consider not only t
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