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Moore v. Jimel9/27/2002
lied Maryland law as it held:
Under Maryland law whether a landlord has a duty to protect tenants is a legal question, ... which we review de novo. (Emphasis supplied).
The Factual Background
Sunday, October 4, 1998, was the final day of the Fells Point Festival, an occasion on which the neighborhood and its commercial establishments would be expected to be more than ordinarily crowded. The Hightopps Bar and Grill is at the corner of Broadway and Thames Street, the literal epicenter of Fells Point. Hightopps is a three-story establishment. The first floor is a bar, with several tables for customers. It is entered from Thames Street. The second floor contains both a game area and a restaurant. The third floor has an outdoor deck overlooking both Thames Street and Broadway. It also has a bar, two restrooms, a storage area, and an office.
There are two approaches to the second and third floors. They may be reached through a ground level door on Broadway, which leads to a stairway with entrances to both the second and third floors. Those upper levels may also be approached from an interior stairway leading from the first floor bar area. There are thus two doors providing ingress for the public, one on Thames Street and one on Broadway.
Because of the anticipated crowd from the Fells Point Festival (the weather turned out to be cold and damp and the crowd was less than anticipated), Hightopps had approximately six security personnel on duty on the evening of October 4. A separate guard was stationed at each of the public entrances, the door on Thames Street and the door on Broadway. Their primary mission was to prevent 1) underage persons and 2) obviously intoxicated persons from entering the establishment. A third guard was stationed at the top of the stairs leading up from the door on Broadway, at the entrance to the third-floor deck. The other three security personnel walked throughout the premises to prevent disruptive incidents between patrons and to handle them if any such incidents should occur.
The appellant, as part of a party of six persons, arrived at the Fells Point Festival at approximately five p.m. In her party was her fiancé, Jason Postlewaite; her friend, Lauren Wolf; another work-acquaintance named Jen; and two friends of Jason's, Ryan Currie and Ryan Dunnigan. Shortly after their arrival at the Festival, the party entered Hightopps via the door on Broadway and climbed the stairs directly to the third-floor deck.
The appellant recalled that someone at the Broadway entrance was "carding," to wit, checking the identification cards for age, of everyone who entered. She also recalled a bartender being present behind the third-floor deck bar. When the appellant and Lauren returned from an uneventful trip to the restroom shortly after their arrival at Hightopps, the appellant recalled there being between six and ten customers, in addition to her own party, on the third-floor deck.
The appellant described her first and uneventful trip to the restroom. From the deck she ascended five to seven steps to a hallway. The door to the ladies' room was "another twelve strides" from the top of those stairs. That third-floor ladies' room had two stalls, each with a swinging door. The large stall on the left (as one enters the ladies' room) had a sliding-type latch; the other stall had no latch. The door from the hallway had no lock because the restroom was designed to be used by more than one person at a time.
On that first trip, the appellant simply "primped" at the mirror while Lauren used one of the stalls. In terms of noise level, the appellant and Lauren were able to converse with each other in nor
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