COA: Bar in Franklin had duty to protect patron after being told of prior altercation

A Franklin bar owed a duty to a patron who was “sucker punched” by another patron even after warning bar security about tensions between the two men, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday.

In August 2018, Marcus Henry was involved in a verbal altercation with Keith Knura at BoJak’s Bar and Grille in Franklin. Both men returned to the bar the next week, and Henry informed bar security about the prior altercation.

Bar security checked in on the two groups – Henry and his friends and Knura and his friends – frequently throughout the evening. While the groups seemed fine most of the night, Knura later sucker punched Henry, striking him multiple times in the head before running away.

Henry sued both Knura and BoJak’s, and the bar moved for summary judgment, claiming it did not owe a duty to Henry because the assault was not foreseeable. But the Johnson Superior Court denied the summary judgment motion, prompting the instant interlocutory appeal in BoJak’s Bar and Grille v. Marcus Henry, 21A-CT-170.

The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of summary judgment for the bar, with Chief Judge Cale Bradford writing that the instant case was more like Hamilton v. Steak ‘n Shake Operations Inc., 92 N.E.3d 1166 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018) than Goodwin v. Yeakle’s Sports Bar & Grill, Inc., 62 N.E. 3d 384 (Ind. 2016). https://www.theindianalawyer.com/articles/41835-in-supreme-court-holds-that-bar-shooting-was-not-foreseeable In the former, the chief judge wrote, “restaurant employees were aware of the discord and escalating tension between the two groups prior to the altercation.”

Likewise here, “The incident in this case was not an unforeseeable sudden act that occurred without warning,” Bradford wrote Wednesday. “The designated evidence clearly establishes that BoJak’s staff knew of prior tension between the two groups and had specifically been warned of an altercation that had occurred between the two groups the week before. BoJak’s security felt the two groups required extra attention, checking on them more than ten times and keeping a ‘constant watchful eye.’

“We conclude that these facts are sufficient to create a duty for BoJak’s to take reasonable steps to provide for Henry’s safety while on the premises,” Bradford concluded. “This is not to say, however, that BoJak’s was negligent, as issues of breach and proximate cause must still be determined by a trier of fact.”