Certainly, utilizing those agencies now that there has been a crime at the premises is warranted. However, it may not have been negligent for DWI to fail to contact law enforcement when it first began receiving threats. Large corporations such as DWI routinely receive threats in the course of business. The vast majorities of those threats are harmless and represent no danger to the employees or customers of those organizations. Therefore, DWI may have been exercising due diligence by increasing its security force and not reporting the action to the police. To determine whether or not DWI was negligent, it would be necessary to see the exact language of the threats. Threats of plausible violence against customers or staff would give rise to a higher standard of care than threats against the property. Businesses cannot be held responsible for harm that occurs as the result of an unforeseeable act by a criminal, assuming that a business has taken reasonable precautions to prevent criminal actions. DWI clearly has a security staff and clearly engaged in security patrols, which mean that they took all reasonable precautions.
Response Posting Two- Response to Alisha.Talbert on 12/05/2008 11:03PM
This post correctly identified that DWI was involved in a terrorist scenario. The advice that DWI seek out the help of local authorities, who can investigate the relevant criminal activities and help outline a plan to protect the hotel, guests, and employees is right on target. In fact, this post made me rethink an earlier position that I had taken, which was that DWI should contact federal authorities.
Instead, it might be appropriate for DWI...
The decision of whether to contact only local authorities or local and federal authorities would need to be based on the response by local law enforcement to the threats.
In addition, the post stated that DWI had a duty to the public to inform them of the threats that they have received. I like that the poster made it clear that DWI has an ethical duty to inform its guests of potential threats to their safety. However, I do not know that a failure to inform guests about the threats could give rise to potential liability as long as DWI takes reasonable steps to ensure the safety of its guests. After all, the harm that occurred was not a result of DWI's negligence, but of the direct intervention of a determined and violent criminal. Further investigation into DWI's legal duty to inform the public about the threats it has received is warranted, since legal duty and ethical duty are not interchangeable.
Finally, I disagree with the poster's assertion that DWI cannot just shut the hotel. If the threat cannot be contained and employees are still at risk, DWI may have no alternative but to shut the hotel until the risk can be managed. If guests are notified of potential danger and still choose to frequent the establishment, then one can say that they have assumed the risk of the terrorist activities. However, the hotel's employees did not sign on for hazardous employment, and requiring them to report for duty when they may be targeted for violence could expose DWI to tremendous financial…
