“WHERE is SECURITY???”
That’s what a patron of Northlake Mall and Northlake Commons reportedly asked in an online forum about safety concerns at these Mecklenburg County shopping venues. The plaintiff in Brown v. TM Northlake Mall, LP, 2025 NCBC 13, proposed that as a central issue for a retail area burdened with more than 1,000 reported crimes from 2017 to 2022, including rape, robbery, and murder. Id. ¶ 4.
An August 13, 2022 tragedy underlies the case. Plaintiff Bianca Brown and Armani Spencer were driving away from a restaurant in the Commons when (Id. ¶ 5):
“‘a reckless driver tailgat[ed] them from Northlake Commons into Northlake Mall.’ At a stoplight on mall grounds, the attacker pulled even with their vehicle, fired about twenty gunshots, and then fled.”
Brown was injured in the attack, and Spencer was killed. The complaints of Brown, and Spencer’s estate, alleged that the attack wouldn’t have happened if there was adequate security at the two retail developments. They sued the owners, managers, and security providers of the Mall and Commons for breaching a duty to safeguard customers arising from the security history that should have placed them on notice to provide it. Id. ¶ 6.
The motion to dismiss and for judgment on the pleadings of the owner, manager, and security company for the Commons centered on two well-settled notions of premises liability law in North Carolina. First, that “[o]rdinarily a possessor of land is not liable for injuries to invitees which are caused by the intentional criminal acts of third parties.” Id. ¶ 10 (quoting Murrow v. Daniels, 321 N.C. 494, 500 (1988)). Second, that liability may still lie when a landowner had “reason to know that there was a likelihood of conduct on the part of third persons which endangered the safety of his invitees[.]” In such settings “a duty to protect or warn the invitees could be imposed.” Id. (quoting Foster v. Winston-Salem Jt. Venture, 303 N.C. 636, 638-39 (1981)).
Judge Conrad noted that the standard “is one of foreseeability.” A plaintiff need not plead that the exact contours of an event could be anticipated, but must “show that in the exercise of reasonable care the defendant should have foreseen that some injury would result from his act or omission or that consequences of a generally injurious nature might have been expected.” Id. (quoting Foster, 303 N.C. at 642).
The Court observed that the Commons defendants didn’t object to the notion that North Carolina law can present circumstances in which landowners can be held liable in a foreseeability scenario. Probably a wise call, as the Court readily concluded five years of notice of 1,000 crimes, often notably publicized, allowed a reasonable inference that a “were or should have been aware” standard was met. Id. ¶ 13.
But the Commons defendants argued that was beside the point because they couldn’t be liable for a shooting that took place on Mall property. A fair legal retort, given the Court’s recitation of existing North Carolina law that a landowner’s reasonable care duty “‘does not extend to guarding against injuries caused by dangerous conditions located’ on someone else’s property and ‘coincides exactly with the extent of the landowner’s control of his property.’” Id. ¶ 15 (quoting Lampkin v. Hous. Mgmt. Res. Inc., 220 N.C. App. 457, 461 (2012).
However, Judge Conrad looked to law in other states that concluded “a property owner does not escape liability for an attack that begins on its premises simply because the victim moves outside the premises before the attack is completed.” Id. (quoting Martin v. Six Flags Over Georgia II, L.P., 801 S.E.2d 24, 30-31 (Ga. 2017)). The Business Court adopted a revised standard for North Carolina, supported by the Restatement (Second) of Torts, that “[i]f the injury-producing moment outside a business is in fact the culmination of a series of events that began inside, the outcome of the case should turn on something less artificial than the location of the property line.” Id. (quoting Paynton v. Spuds, LLC, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 92988, at *8 (E.D. Pa. July 9, 2014).
The Court found that, at an initial motions phase, the complaints alleged enough in claiming the attacker initiated a reckless driving event that tailgated its way from the Commons onto Mall property and culminated in the shooting.
Worth Noting
- Of course, personal injury cases that turn on principles of negligence are not your typical fare for the Business Court. But there’s more than one path to the jurisdiction of a specialty court. Here, the Chief Justice designated the cases as exceptional under Rule 2.1 and assigned them to Judge Conrad.
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