| Court: | MN Supreme Court |
| Facts: | Landlord hires a resident manager without doing much background
checking. Turns out he had a criminal history, a tendency
to drink on the job, etc. The screening process was very
lax-- he basically didn't answer some questions.
Then, he rapes a tenant at knife point and tries to strangle her. |
| Posture: | The guy is convicted. The plaintiff sues the landlord for negligence in the hiring process. |
| Issue: | Did the landlord owe a duty of reasonable care in finding its resident manager? |
| Holding: | Yes. |
| Rule: | Liability isn't solely determined by a failure to investigate; it's the totality of the circumstances, and this is a matter for the jury. |
| Reasoning: | There's no duty to investigate as a matter of law, but there's also no cause to think that the jury made a finding contrary to the evidence. Proximate cause is for the jury to decide. |
| Dicta: | Dissent: failure to investigate a job candidate doesn't make it foreseeable that he'll rape a tenant. |