Defendant lessors and building manager had no duty to protect tenant psychologist from being murdered by her former patient.
Defendants provided satisfactory security and nothing more would have prevented the premediated murder. Plaintiff’s decedent Kathryn Faughey was a psychologist in a psychiatric office who was murdered by former patient non-party David Tarloff in decedent’s office. Decedent leased her office from defendant psychiatric office which leased its space from defendant building owner and defendant building manager. The Appellate Division First Department affirmed dismissal of plaintiff’s complaint holding that defendants had no duty to protect decedent from the violent actions of third parties including former patients because such actions were not foreseeable given the absence of prior violent criminal activity by the patient or other third parties in the building. Moreover, defendants had satisfied any duty to provide “minimal precautions” by providing 24/7 doorman coverage, surveillance cameras, controlled building access, and functioning locks on the doors of the office suite and of decedent’s personal office. The First Department stated that it was pure speculation that any claimed additional security measures such as announcing visitors, installing an office intercom or buzzer, or keeping the office doors locked after hours would have prevented the former patient from killing the decedent.
The First Department also held that the door man’s alleged negligence in failing to recognize the patient’s suspicious behavior could not have been a proximate cause of decedent’s death because it was still unforeseeable that the patient was about to engage in a murderous rampage. The patient’s conduct was a superseding cause severing the causal chain. Given that the attack was targeted and premeditated, it was unlikely that any reasonable security measures would have deterred Tarloff.
Faughey v. New 56-79 IG Assoc., L.P., 2017 NY Slip Opn 02608 (Apr. 4, 2017) http://nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2017/2017_02608.htm
Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kathryn_Faughey provides additional facts: decedent Top of Form
Kathryn Faughey was a 56-year-old New York City psychologist who was murdered by 39-year-old David Tarloff at Dr. Faughey’s upper East Side Manhattan office on the night of February 12, 2008. David Tarloff had exhibited disturbing behaviors for almost two decades, and was well-known to the medical and psychiatric establishment and the police force. During these years, up to the time of Dr. Faughey murder, Tarloff received a wide range of psychiatric assessments and treatments including medication and electroshock therapy by force.
On the evening of the murder, Tarloff walked past the doorman rolling a suitcase behind him (as seen on the building’s surveillance video) and saying that he was there to see Dr. Kent Schinbach (a psychiatrist in the same office). Tarloff waited in the office reception area chatting with a patient, while one of Dr. Faughey’s evening sessions was in progress. After Dr. Faughey’s session concluded and when he knew that Faughey was alone in her office, he entered the room and attacked her with a meat cleaver. Dr. Schinbach attempted to help her, but was seriously wounded by slashes in the face and neck.
Tarloff was arrested, arraigned for the murder, and ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation after which he was determined to be mentally competent to stand trial. There was evidence that the attack had been premeditated but that the intended victim was Schinbach. Tarloff told police that he had planned to rob Schinbach, who he remembered as being involved in diagnosing him with schizophrenia in 1991 and arranging for his institutionalization at that time.
After two mistrials, Tarloff was convicted of first-degree murder of Dr. Faughey and first-degree assault of Dr. Schinbach. Tarloff was sentenced for life without the possibility of parole for the murder and 25 years for the assault.
