In 2009, Shawn Lester met a group of friends at a bar at "the Pike," a retail and entertainment area in California. At about 2:00 a.m., while Lester was in the parking lot outside the Pike, a car pulled up, and six men got out of the car and attacked and stabbed him. Lester sued various parties, including the Pike security personnel, for negligence and premises liability. The defendants moved for summary judgment on these claims, arguing that that they did not owe a duty of care to Lester because the assault and stabbing were not foreseeable. The defendants' security expert testified that the incident was "spontaneous" and lacked "forewarning," The defendants also presented "incident reports" showing that "no prior similar criminal incidents" had occurred at the Pike. Lester argued that there had been prior violent fights at the Pike and that the police had been called out to the area many times.
Lester's expert witness testified that the Pike was located in a "high crime area." Lester also noted that security personnel had been hired to patrol the area and argued that this alone established foreseeability. In whose favor should the court rule? Is the determination of whether a duty is present dependent on whether there were any security issues at all in that location, or does a duty arise only if the particular harm suffered by the plaintiff was foreseeable? If the court holds that the defendants did not have a duty to prevent the attack, can they still be held liable for premises liability?