RIVERSIDE — When 24-year-old Laurel W. moved out of her apartment, she explained simply in her written notice: "Do not feel safe here anymore."
Earlier that day, a stranger had exposed himself in front of her. She fled in tears to the nearby home of her parents, who in turn demanded answers of the landlord about security.
Saying they were assured that the incident was an aberration within an otherwise safe residential complex, their daughter returned to her apartment three weeks later to finish moving out her belongings.
And then she was raped, allegedly by the same man.
The young woman has sued the owners of Corona Pointe Apartments, one of the largest complexes in Riverside, and the reason goes beyond alleged negligence for failing to provide sufficient security.
Citing patrol logs from the apartment owner's security company, her lawyers are also charging that the landlord was well aware that a sexual predator was preying on young women living there--and that another woman had been raped in the complex several months earlier--but management did not warn tenants for fear they would move out.
An attorney for the apartment owners--RREEF America Reit Inc., a real estate investment trust that bought the complex just a few weeks before the first incident reported by Laurel H.--counters that company officials were unaware at the time of the sexual predator.
The case involves an area of law known as premises liability in which plaintiffs can seek damages from a business owner if, as customers of that business, they are a victim of a crime.
Last Thursday, in a premises liability case, the California Supreme Court ruled that a woman who was raped in a commercial parking garage lacking security could not obtain compensation in large part because the garage had been crime-free for 10 years.
The Riverside case "is entirely different," said UCLA law professor Gary L. Blasi, "because there was actual knowledge of a dangerous condition" in the apartment complex, where one-bedroom units now rent from $650 to $670 a month.
After filing a lawsuit, attorneys for the victim discovered that the man who allegedly targeted her was suspected in a series of sex offenses in the 714-unit complex. His behavior, including multiple exposure incidents and other lewd acts, was well documented by the security company hired by the landlord, but the management did not warn tenants about him, court documents allege.
