Chatman v. Southern University at New Orleans

197 So. 3d 366, 2015 La.App. 1 Cir. 1179, 2016 La. App. LEXIS 1340, 2016 WL 3613265
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedJuly 6, 2016
DocketNo. 2015-CA-1179
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 197 So. 3d 366 (Chatman v. Southern University at New Orleans) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Chatman v. Southern University at New Orleans, 197 So. 3d 366, 2015 La.App. 1 Cir. 1179, 2016 La. App. LEXIS 1340, 2016 WL 3613265 (La. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinions

SANDRA CABRINA JENKINS, Judge.

11 This is an appeal of a June 2015 judgment by the trial court rendered after a jury verdict in favor of appellee Gloria Chatman and against appellant Southern University at New Orleans (“SUNO”), finding that SUNO was 15 percent at fault for the personal injuries sustained by Ms. [370]*370Chatman when she was attacked by her roommate and a non-resident minor in an on-campus housing facility in January 2010.

For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

The physical attack that prompted this civil suit — as well as a criminal prosecution of Ms. Chatman’s roommate, Terneisha Sparks-Sanders — occurred on the night of January 18, 2010. The scene of the attack was the two-bedroom, on-campus apartment that Ms. Chatman and Ms. Sanders were leasing from SUNO. Ms. Chatman and Ms. Sanders had been roommates for about one week; they, however, had been best friends for several years. They met in high school, and decided to be roommates.

12At the time of the attack, four people were present in the apartment — Ms. Chat-man; Ms. Sanders; Ms. Sanders’s 16-year-old cousin, Jamisha Sanders; and Ja-misha’s boyfriend, Dale. Jamisha and her boyfriend were visiting Ms. Sanders.

The attack occurred during a heated dispute over missing food that had been purchased earlier in the week. Ms. Chat-man and Ms. Sanders disagree over the details of the fight, which are discussed elsewhere in this opinion. As a result of the attack, Ms. Chatman was seriously injured; she completely lost the use of one of her eyes. For her conduct in the attack, Ms. Sanders was convicted of second degree battery and imprisoned.

In November 2010, Ms. Chatman filed suit against SUNO as the “owner, operator, and manager of the premises at issue in this litigation.” The gist of Ms. Chat-man’s allegations is that SUNO was liable for failing to protect her from being severely injured in a physical attack by not only her own roommate, but also a “non-student/non-resident” of SUNO. Ms. Chatman’s allegations included the following:

• SUNO warranted to her that “there would be on-site security and professional staff members available at the on-campus housing on a daily basis”;
• SUNO permitted a non-student/nonresident to reside in the on-campus apartment in which she was injured;
• SUNO failed to have proper administrative staff, such as residence assistants, on site to prevent non-students from residing in the on-campus apartment; and
• SUNO failed to provide her with the identity of the administrative staff that was available to receive complaints of conduct in violation of on-campus housing policy.

|sMs. Chatman alleged that SUNO’s substandard conduct was the cause-in-fact and the legal cause of her damages.

In January 2010, SUNO opened Phase I of its new Residential Life facility, which had 10 buildings and about 150 students. The facility had a residential life office located a few minutes’ walk from the apartment buildings. Ms. Chatman and Ms. Sanders were among those first 150 housing students. SUNO selected an apartment-style, as opposed to a dormitory-style, design for its on-campus housing facility.

Each of SUNO’s apartment buildings had a community assistant (“CA”), who was a SUNO student and employee, assigned to each building. In SUNO’s housing literature, a CA was described as a “leader and advisor” who “enforce[s] policies to help ensure the safety and well-being of the students.”

When Phase I opened in January 2010, there were 10 CAs living in the apartment [371]*371complex. At least one CA was on duty each night when the residential life office was closed. The CA on duty had a master key to all the apartments for inspection purposes. The CAs were required to perform security checks .of the buildings and the floors twice- per week. Although SUNO planned to provide its students with the cell-phone numbers and e-mail addresses of its CAs, this plan was not implemented until after the attack on Ms. Chatman. According to SUNO’s housing consultant, the CAs’ cell phone numbers were not given to the students because the CAs had a limited number of minutes on their personal cell phones.

I ¿Visitors were allowed in the apartments subject to the following Residential Housing Rules:

Number of Occupants
The maximum number of people living in an apartment shall be no more than ... two people in a two bedroom apartment. ... Guests staying more than 48 hours without our permission will' be considered unauthorized occupants and you will be in violation of the lease. Visitors
You are responsible for your guests’ compliance with all these Community Policies and parking regulations. Overnight guests are allowed only with the approval of management. Guests who stay after 2:00 a.m. will be considered overnight guests. Guests may stay no more than 48 hours in a row, not to exceed twelve (12) nights in any given semester with prior approval from Management.
Minor Children
Children are prohibited from overnight stay in the apartment. Children who are visiting must be supervised at all times, including balconies, parking lot and common areas. Baby sitting is not allowed in the apartment. [Internal emphasis omitted.]

The Residential Housing Rules also authorized SUNO staff to enter the apartments for the purpose of inspection and when SUNO community policies were violated.

SUNO provided its resident students with the following methods for reporting problems: (1) locating any of the 10 CAs; (2) visiting or calling the residential housing office; (3) flagging down, calling, or-notifying campus police on-line; and (4) calling 911.

On January 10, 2010, Ms'. Chatman and Ms. Sanders moved into their two-bedroom, on-campus apartment. Ms. Chat-man and Ms. Sanders, who were best friends since high school, decided to be roommates. Ms; Chatman testified that when she signed the lease, she was not given any information about the CAs. She testified that no group meetings were held to introduce the students to the CAs. | ¡According to Ms. Chatman, she only coincidentally met the CA assigned to her apartment building,' Robert Fezekas, on the day that she was moving into the apartment. Mr. Fezekas helped her carry her television into her apartment, introduced himself to her as a CA, and told her that his apartment was directly above her apartment.

During her first week in the apartment, Ms. Chatman did not spend the night at the apartment; she spent the night elsewhere with her boyfriend. During that week, Ms. Sanders had multiple visitors at the apartment. According to Ms. Chat-man, Ms. Sanders’s visitors included -Ms. Sanders’s boyfriend; her boyfriend’s aunt; the aunt’s two minor children; Ms. Sanders’s three-year-old child; Jamisha (Ms. Sanders’s 16-year-old cousin); and Jami-sha’s boyfriend. Ms. - Sanders acknowledged that she understood - that guests [372]*372were to register if they spent the night. She also acknowledged that Jamisha and her boyfriend spent the night at the apartment and that she never registered them.

On the afternoon of Thursday, January 14, 2010, Ms. Chatman, Ms.

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Bluebook (online)
197 So. 3d 366, 2015 La.App. 1 Cir. 1179, 2016 La. App. LEXIS 1340, 2016 WL 3613265, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chatman-v-southern-university-at-new-orleans-lactapp-2016.