Kline v.

1500 MASSACHUSETTS AVE., APT. CORP., U.S.C.A., D.C. Cir., 141 U.S. App. D.C. 370, 439 F.2d 477 (1970)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

The location at issue is a large apartment building with approximately 585 individual apartment units. At the time, P first signed a lease a doorman was on duty at the main entrance twenty-four hours a day, and at least one employee at all times manned a desk in the lobby from which all persons using the elevators could be observed. By mid-1966, however, the main entrance had no doorman, the desk in the lobby was left unattended much of the time, the 15th Street entrance was generally unguarded due to a decrease in garage personnel, and the 16th Street entrance was often left unlocked all night. The entrances were allowed to be unguarded in the face of an increasing number of assaults, larcenies, and robberies being perpetrated against the tenants in and from the common hallways of the apartment building. These facts were undisputed. P was assaulted and robbed just outside her apartment on the first floor above the street level of her 585-unit apartment building. This occurred only two months after Leona Sullivan, another female tenant, had been similarly attacked in the same common way. P sued D, the landlord. The District Court ruled in favor of D because there was no duty for a landlord to protect the tenants against criminal activity. P appealed.