Opinion
March 4, 1991
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Queens County (Di Tucci, J.).
Ordered that the order is reversed, on the law, the motion and cross motion are granted, and the complaint is dismissed; and it is further,
Ordered that the plaintiffs' cross appeal from the order is dismissed as they are not aggrieved thereby (see, Parochial Bus Sys. v Board of Educ., 60 N.Y.2d 539, 544-545); and it is further
Ordered that the defendants, appearing separately and filing separate briefs, are awarded one bill of costs.
The plaintiff Martin Amarante was shot in a small grocery store during an armed robbery as a result of which he suffered serious personal injuries. He thereafter commenced this action against the store's tenant-lessee and its out-of-possession landlord for negligence in the maintenance, management and control of the premises. The injured plaintiff claimed that the defendants owed him, a lawful visitor on the premises, a duty to take protective security measures to minimize his risk of harm from the criminal acts of third parties. The Supreme Court denied the defendants' motions for summary judgment dismissing the complaint.
In assessing the scope of a tortfeasor's duty, not only logic and science, but also considerations of public policy play an important role (see, Bovsun v Sanperi, 61 N.Y.2d 219, 228; De Angelis v Lutheran Med. Center, 58 N.Y.2d 1053, 1055). "While moral and logical judgments are significant components of the analysis, we are also bound to consider the larger social consequences of our decisions and to tailor our notion of duty so that `the legal consequences of wrongs [are limited] to a controllable degree'" (Waters v New York City Hous. Auth., 69 N.Y.2d 225, 229, quoting Tobin v Grossman, 24 N.Y.2d 609, 619).
We cannot agree that the scope of a shopkeeper's and landlord's liability should be extended to patrons who sustained injury during the course of an armed robbery. Because, under the circumstances, the defendants had no duty to provide additional protective measures to insure the injured plaintiff's safety, summary judgment should have been granted to the defendants and the complaint dismissed. Thompson, J.P., Kunzeman, Lawrence and O'Brien, JJ., concur.