Victim's survivors cannot sue restaurant claiming unreasonable delay in calling police
Beverly Harshaw sued the Classic Coney Island after her husband was shot and killed in the restaurant. She claimed that the restaurant's employees responded unreasonably slowly to a fight that developed in the bar, and that as a result the responding police did not arrive in time to prevent her husband from being fatally wounded.
On its second appeal from the trial court, the Court of Appeals overturned the lower court's decision and granted summary disposition of the widow's claim. It noted that the Engler Majority of Michigan's Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that "a premises owners' only duty to act arose only when "specific acts occur on the premises that pose a risk of imminent and foreseeable harm to an identifiable party." In a 2007 case, it limited the premises owners' duty to "reasonably expediting the involvement of the police." On the basis of these holdings, the Court of Appeals ruled that the restaurant owed no duty to respond to the initial fight, and that its' call to police within minutes (according to video surveillance tapes) of the gun being pulled, was legally adequate.