Background
Upsilon Sigma, an undergraduate Omega Psi Phi chapter at Fort Valley State University, held its annual homecoming block party at a property known as a fraternity house. Thunder, LLC owned the property, and Omega Psi Phi was the fraternity’s national organization. The party drew a large crowd, included music and alcohol, and had a substantial police presence.
During an argument near the property, multiple shooters opened fire. Megan Jackson was injured and Tyler French was killed. Jackson and French’s representatives sued Omega and Thunder for premises liability, negligence, and nuisance, alleging that the defendants should have kept the property safe and prevented the shooting. The trial court granted summary judgment to both defendants.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals affirmed. It held that the plaintiffs had not produced evidence from which a jury could find the shooting reasonably foreseeable, a necessary predicate for a duty to protect partygoers from third-party criminal conduct.
Evidence of occasional prior fights and police responses for crowd control or disorderly conduct was insufficient because those events were not substantially similar to the multiperson shooting: there was no evidence that earlier incidents involved weapons, injuries, arrests, or harm to bystanders. Nor was there evidence of a high-crime area, armed guests at prior parties, known violent attendees, or a volatile situation before the gunfire. The court also held that the plaintiffs abandoned their nuisance challenges by failing to support them with argument or authority on appeal.
Key Takeaways
- Prior fistfights and generic crowd-control incidents did not make a later multiperson shooting reasonably foreseeable.
- Without foreseeability, Omega and Thunder had no duty to protect partygoers from the third-party shooters.
- A negligent supervision theory also failed because the shooting was not a foreseeable result of any alleged failure to supervise the local fraternity chapter.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores that Georgia negligent-security claims require evidence connecting prior incidents or other circumstances to the particular criminal act at issue. Large crowds, alcohol, and some history of fights alone do not establish foreseeability of a shooting.