WELCH v. PAPPAS RESTAURANTS, INC. (Two Cases)

Three separate lawsuits reached the Supreme Court of Georgia after people were shot during robberies on business properties: a CVS parking lot, a Pappadeaux restaurant parking lot patrolled by a security company called Tactical Security Group, and related claims against that security company. The injured people or their families sued the property owners and, in one case, the security contractor, arguing the businesses failed to take reasonable security precautions even though similar dangers had happened before. The court had to decide how much proof of foreseeability a plaintiff must show, who decides that question (judge or jury), and whether a security company hired to patrol a property can be sued directly by visitors it did not contract with. The court held that foreseeability is judged by looking at all the circumstances together, not just whether an identical past crime occurred, that juries usually decide this question, and that security contractors can owe visitors a duty of care under a legal standard borrowed from the Restatement of Torts. It upheld the CVS verdict, but sent the Pappadeaux and security company cases back for further proceedings.

Reasonable foreseeability of third-party crime is part of a proprietor's duty under Georgia's premises liability statute and is assessed under the totality of the circumstances, not a rigid substantially-similar-prior-crime requirement; that question generally goes to the jury; and a security contractor may owe visitors a duty of care under Section 324A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts.

The decision affects how Georgia businesses evaluate security spending and legal risk, especially in higher-crime areas, and it gives injured customers a broader path to hold both landowners and hired security companies accountable when crimes were foreseeable but unaddressed.

Affirmed in Case No. S22G0527; reversed in part and vacated in part in Case Nos. S22G0617 and S22G0618, remanded

1. The court explained that a property owner's duty under Georgia's premises safety statute (O.C.G.A. § 51-3-1) to keep premises safe only extends to protecting against crimes that were reasonably foreseeable, so foreseeability determines the scope of the duty owed, separate from whether the owner's security measures were adequate (breach) or whether the harm was a natural result of that failure (proximate cause).
2. The court held that because the existence of a legal duty is normally a question of law but foreseeability turns on disputed facts (like prior crimes and what the owner knew), the jury usually decides foreseeability, while a judge can only decide it as a matter of law in a 'plain and palpable' case where no reasonable juror could disagree.
3. The court rejected a rigid rule requiring proof of a prior crime that was 'substantially similar' to the one at issue, clarifying that earlier decisions like Sturbridge did not impose such a strict requirement and that foreseeability instead depends on the totality of circumstances, including the location, timing, frequency, and similarity of past incidents plus other evidence like a high-crime location or a 'volatile situation' the owner knew about.
4. Applying this totality approach, the court found that the CVS jury could reasonably rely on prior armed robberies near the store, staff safety concerns, and poor lighting to find the shooting foreseeable, while the Court of Appeals had wrongly treated similar evidence involving break-ins and armed suspects near the Pappadeaux as too dissimilar to create a jury question.
5. On the apportionment-of-fault issue, the court explained that although a verdict that contradicts itself (an inconsistent or 'repugnant' verdict) is void, courts must adopt any reasonable reading of a verdict that upholds it, and here the jury could have logically found the shooter acted intentionally rather than negligently, which is consistent with assigning him zero percent negligence under the specific jury instructions given.
6. On the security contractor question, the court held that Section 324A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts, which lets someone be sued for carelessly performing services they voluntarily undertook that were meant to protect others, applies to security companies hired to patrol premises, so such a company is not automatically shielded just because it was not the property owner.

• negligent security
• armed robbery lawsuit
• foreseeability of crime
• apportionment of fault
• security contractor liability