United States Seventh Circuit

In plaintiff's suit against a sports bar and two individual defendants for negligence and punitive damages, claiming that the two individuals induced plaintiff to become intoxicated in the bar and attempted to take her back to their apartment for "sexual exploitation" and that the sports bar (through its bartenders) knew of the defendants' plans but negligently failed to protect her from the attack, district court's dismissal of the negligence claim against the sports bar is reversed and remanded where: 1) plaintiff has sufficiently pled that the sports bar owed her a duty to protect her against the criminal attack by the individuals if it actually knew of their alleged plan to sexually exploit her off premises, and has also sufficiently pled the remaining elements of her negligence claim; 2) at this stage of litigation, it cannot be said as a matter of law that the sports bar's actions were not the proximate cause of plaintiff's injuries; but 3) plaintiff has failed to state a claim under a voluntary undertaking theory of liability as simply not giving her a phone book or telling her to get a ride home with someone else in the bar is not enough to say that the sports bar voluntarily assumed a duty to ensure her safe arrival at her hotel.

Appellate Information

• Argued 04/14/2010
• Decided 10/22/2010
• Published 10/22/2010

Judges

• KANNE

Court

• United States Seventh Circuit

Counsel