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Recent Case Developments: Dave & Buster’s Held Not Liable For Stabbing of Customer


When you operate a restaurant or a bar, etc., sometimes customers get attacked by other customers/patrons--for whatever reason. So when can the restaurant be held liable in situations like that?

In what is a horrible story, in 2010, an 8-year-old boy was at a Dave & Buster’s with his family at The Source Mall in Westbury. The boy was playing a game when he was suddenly attacked and stabbed 5 times in the back by a 23-year-old man who testified in the case that he went there to stab someone. 

[The man plead guilty to attempted murder and was sentenced to 14 years in prison.]

The boy (through his parents) sued the attacker (who has no money, I assume), Dave & Buster’s, and the Mall. The boy alleged Dave & Buster’s failed to provide adequate security, which would have prevented the attack.

Dave & Buster’s got the case dismissed against them at the trial court level, and the boy appealed. In a recent decision, the Second Department affirmed that Dave & Buster's was not liable for the attack.

The reason? Restaurants, bars, etc. are only held liable for such attacks if they were on sufficient “notice” of suspicious behavior/circumstances leading up to the attack--that is, if such an attack was "foreseeable". The law doesn’t hold them liable for sudden, unforeseen events.

The court said:
[Dave & Buster’s] had a duty to take minimal security precautions to protect members of the public from reasonably foreseeable criminal acts by third parties … Here, [Dave & Buster’s] established their prima facie entitlement to judgment as a matter of law by showing that the criminal assault of the plaintiff was not foreseeable.

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