Nature of the Case
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Facts
P was raped at an office building downtown in the District of Columbia. P was employed in the building as a secretary for a commercial tenant. D held the master lease on the premises. Community Management Corporation (CMC) managed the property and received, handled, and informed the D of tenant complaints, including reports of security problems in the building. D was in the process of selling the building and no longer wanted any lease beyond month to month. D resisted authorizing expenditures for building maintenance and repairs during 1988-89 while negotiating the sale of the property. By May 1989, five of the building's thirteen floors - the third, ninth, tenth, twelfth, and penthouse floors - were vacant. P entered the elevator on the eleventh floor. No other passenger was in the cab. She pressed the button for the lobby, but the elevator stopped on the ninth floor. P pushed the 'door open' button to admit the next passenger. She did not know that the ninth floor was vacant at that time. A man boarded the elevator and moved behind P. Grabbing her in a choke hold, the man first dragged P from the elevator, then down the ninth-floor hallway, and through unlocked doors to a dark vacant office, where he raped and robbed her. The rape occurred at around 9:20 a.m., during regular business hours. The elevators had not been programmed to bypass all vacant floors. There were also unlocked doors leading from the building stairwell onto floors. P sued D in tort alleging that D had a duty to take reasonable measures to shield tenants and their employees from the foreseeable criminal conduct of third persons. P presented evidence, through incident reports, tenant correspondence, and other business records maintained by CMC, of thefts of personal property and business equipment from offices in the building, drug use and sexual activity in a building restroom, and tenant complaints of threatening intruders and inadequate security. During the month preceding P's rape, CMC and D received a number of alerts from tenants regarding potential threats to employee safety in the building reporting the repeated appearances 'over the last five months' of 'a strange street person' at MALDEF's office suite. They requested a security guard during work hours or an intercom system with an electronic release. P presented expert testimony that the security at the building did not comply with standards of commercial building security. At the close of P's evidence, D moved for a directed verdict. The court granted it in that P had not proved the foreseeability of the rape.
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