Police officer shootings are a hot topic, raising questions of racial profiling and proper police officer training. These shootings also raise liability issues for property owners when shootings take place on a property owner’s premises.

On January 28, 2006, Eric Hernandez, an off-duty police officer, was shot and killed by another police officer, Alfredo Toro, in the parking lot of a White Castle restaurant. The shooting occurred after five men had assaulted Hernandez inside the restaurant and Hernandez proceeded outside into the restaurant’s parking lot where he confronted an individual he mistakenly believed had participated in the assault and held a handgun to that person. Toro, responding to a 911 call from a White Castle employee, arrived and ordered Hernandez to put down the gun. When Hernandez failed to comply, Toro shot and killed Hernandez.

In the case of Salichs v. City of New York, et. al., Hernandez’s mother commenced a wrongful death action against the City, White Castle, Toro and White Castle’s alarm company. The Department dismissed the case against White Castle’s and the alarm company since Hernandez’s death was not a “forseeable result of any lapse of White Castle’s security,” and that, the “occurrences in the parking lot after the initial assault constituted unforeseeable superseding or intervening conduct that severed the chain of causation between the alarm system’s alleged inadequate response to the triggered alarm signal and decedent’s death.”

While tragedies may take place on a property owner’s premises, this case demonstrates that courts may not punish property owners for these tragedies if they are not a forseeable result of the property owner’s negligence.

Thanks to Caroline Frelich for her contribution to this post.