McKown v. Simon Property Group, Inc.

¶1 This case concerns the scope of landowners’ or possessors’ responsibility for harm that results when strangers commit criminal acts against invitees on business premises. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals certified three questions to us regarding this duty under Washington law. In answering these questions, we hold that when a duty is premised on evidence of prior similar acts, a landowner or possessor owes a duty to protect business invitees from third party criminal conduct when such conduct is foreseeable based on past experience of prior similar acts. The prior acts of violence on the…