Kelley Kronenberg Partner and Business Unit Leader Aaron Neifeld secured an affirmance from Florida’s Sixth District Court of Appeal, completing a two-level victory in a $1 million premises liability case arising from a bar assault. Aaron first won summary judgment at the trial level, and when the plaintiff appealed, the Sixth District upheld that ruling in full. 

The plaintiff sued after being attacked by another patron at a bar and restaurant, arguing the establishment knew or should have known the attack was coming and failed to prevent it. Aaron recognized early that the case turned on a single threshold question: foreseeability. Under Florida law, a proprietor’s duty to protect patrons from third party criminal acts is not absolute. To establish that duty, a plaintiff must show the defendant had actual or constructive knowledge of the dangerous propensities of a specific patron, or that a dangerous condition on the premises made harm likely. 

Aaron built the summary judgment record around that standard. The evidence showed no prior violent incidents on the premises, no knowledge of dangerous propensities by the attacking patron, and no warnings of impending violence that would have put the establishment on notice in time to act. With no evidence to support the foreseeability element, Aaron argued the duty question was one of law for the Court, not a question of fact for a jury. 

The trial court agreed and granted summary judgment. The plaintiff appealed, and the Sixth District affirmed, finding the record evidence insufficient to establish that the attack was foreseeable under Florida law. 

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