ASSAULTED TENANT LOSES CASE OVER SAFE LIGHTING.

Byline: Associated Press 

A woman who was shot across the street from her Los Angeles apartment, where she parked because her landlord reportedly kept the garage dimly lit, cannot collect nearly $2 million that a jury awarded against the landlord, says a state appeals court.

Although apartment owners who fail to provide proper security can be liable for crimes against tenants on the premises, they are not responsible for crimes on the streets, the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles said in a 2-1 ruling Wednesday.

Security Pacific Corp., which owned the apartment building, "did not control the public street on which (Debra Rosenbaum's) injury occurred nor did it create the dangerous condition of a band of marauding thugs using the street to seek out victims to attack," said the opinion by Justice Fred Woods.

But dissenting Justice Earl Johnson said the owner knew of the inadequate lighting and of attacks both inside and outside the property, yet left Rosenbaum with no choice but to park on the street in a high-crime area. Holding landlords responsible in such cases would encourage better security, he said.

Toni Rae Bruno, a lawyer for Security Pacific, said the ruling was consistent with previous cases. She said allegations that the bank was aware of the dangerous conditions and ignored tenants' complaints were "heavily contested."

But Browne Greene, a lawyer for Rosenbaum, was indignant.

"Are we going to encourage landowners not to take steps to have safe premises and thereby force their tenants out into the street?" he asked. Saying the court system favors big business, he predicted that the state Supreme Court would deny his appeal.

Rosenbaum, an architecture student at the University of California, Los Angeles, was robbed and shot in the head as she was getting out of her car across the street from her apartment in December 1989, the court said. She suffered permanent brain injury and partial facial paralysis, but recovered sufficiently to return to school and graduate, Greene said.

In her suit against Security Pacific, Rosenbaum said she never used the garage behind the apartment because it was poorly lit and the hallway and courtyard between the garage and the apartment were dark. She said there had been numerous robberies and assaults on tenants in the garage area and courtyard, and that she had been assaulted on the street two years earlier. She said the landlord, in response to tenant complaints, had promised to improve the lighting but didn't.

After Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Arthur Jean refused to dismiss the suit, a jury awarded Rosenbaum more than $3.2 million for future economic losses, medical costs and pain and suffering. The jury held the assailants 90 percent at fault, the landlord 9 percent and Rosenbaum 1 percent. Required to pay all of the economic losses, the landlord's share came to nearly $2 million.

But Jean then reversed himself and said he should have dismissed the suit. The appeals court agreed.

Property owners have been held responsible for criminal attacks by others only in areas they control, said Woods, joined by Presiding Justice Mildred Lillie.

"It cannot be argued the dangerous condition the (landlord) created on the premises spilled over into the public streets," Woods said.