For decades the defense in a negligent security case wrote itself. A criminal did this. A criminal’s decision to stab a man on a dance floor is not something my client caused, and it breaks the chain of causation as a matter of law. Judges gave the instruction. Juries found negligence and then found no causation, and the case ended in a defense verdict that looked, from the outside, like a contradiction.
On January 28, 2026, the Minnesota Supreme Court held that giving that instruction in that posture is error.
In Glay v. R.C. of St. Cloud, Inc., No. A23-1464 (Minn. Jan. 28, 2026), the court held that “a jury should not be instructed on superseding intervening cause when the conduct that an innkeeper claims is a superseding intervening cause is the same conduct that must be foreseeable to the innkeeper to establish the innkeeper’s negligence.” The reasoning is a syllogism the court had already applied twice, in a landowner case and a hiring case, and finally applied to bars: if the jury found the attack foreseeable — and it had to, to find negligence at all — then the attack cannot be unforeseeable, and “as a matter of law, foreseeable conduct cannot be a superseding intervening cause.”
That decision matters. But it is the second most important thing to understand about these cases. The first is what Minnesota’s premises duty actually is, because it is not what most people assume.
It is a duty to deter, not a duty to prevent.
Does a business have to protect me from being attacked by someone else?
Usually not. The starting point in Minnesota is a firm no-duty rule, and the exceptions are narrow and enumerated.
Harper v. Herman, 499 N.W.2d 472 (Minn. 1993), states the rule, quoting Delgado v. Lohmar, 289 N.W.2d 479, 483 (Minn. 1979):
The fact that an actor realizes or should realize that action on his part is necessary for another’s aid or protection does not of itself impose upon him a duty to take such action … unless a special relationship exists … between the actor and the other which gives the other the right to protection.
Harper, 499 N.W.2d at 474. And then the list:
Generally, a special relationship giving rise to a duty to warn is only found on the part of common carriers, innkeepers, possessors of land who hold it open to the public, and persons who have custody of another person under circumstances in which that other person is deprived of normal opportunities of self-protection.
Id. (citing Restatement (Second) of Torts § 314A (1965)). Harper also disposes of the argument plaintiffs most want to make — they knew it was dangerous — in one sentence: “superior knowledge of a dangerous condition by itself, in the absence of a duty to provide protection, is insufficient to establish liability in negligence.” Id. at 475.
The supreme court has treated that list as a boundary, not a starting point. In H.B. ex rel. Clark v. Whittemore, 552 N.W.2d 705 (Minn. 1996), children in a mobile home park told the resident manager that another tenant was sexually abusing them. The manager told them to tell their parents and did nothing else. The court of appeals found a special relationship. The supreme court reversed, holding that none of the asserted grounds “even remotely falls within the parameters this court has carefully carved out as the outer boundaries for this exception to the common law rule.” Id. at 709 (quoting Harper, emphasis added).
Two things from Whittemore are worth carrying into any intake:
- Entrustment has to be accepted. “Unlike Erickson, here there was no acceptance by Arndt of the children’s entrustment; indeed it was specifically rejected when Arndt instructed the children to tell their parents about Whittemore’s abuse.” Id. at 708–09.
- Special relationships “typically involve some degree of dependence.” Id. at 708 (citing Restatement (Second) of Torts § 314A cmt. b). Custody, vulnerability, and the deprivation of normal self-protection are the recurring facts.
So how did the parking ramp case get around that?
It didn’t get around it. It added a category — and it defined the duty in a way that is far more favorable to businesses than the phrase “negligent security” suggests.
Erickson v. Curtis Investment Co., 447 N.W.2d 165 (Minn. 1989), arose out of a rape in a downtown Minneapolis parking ramp at 5 p.m. on a December afternoon. Justice Simonett framed the analysis this way, at 168:
If the law is to impose a duty on A to protect B from C’s criminal acts, the law usually looks for a special relationship between A and B, a situation where B has in some way entrusted his or her safety to A and A has accepted that entrustment. This special relationship also assumes that the harm represented by C is something that A is in a position to protect against and should be expected to protect against.
And then the sentence defense counsel should have memorized:
As to business enterprises generally, the law has been cautious and reluctant to impose a duty to protect. A mere merchant-customer relationship is not enough to impose a duty on the merchant to protect his customers.
Id. The court canvassed the policy objections and did not dismiss them. Crime prevention is a governmental function. A duty to guard against “the devious, sociopathic, and unpredictable conduct of criminals does not lend itself easily to an ascertainable standard of care uncorrupted by hindsight.” Id. And there is the cost problem: “To post security guards at each parking ramp level 24 hours a day might be the most effective crime deterrent, but the cost may be prohibitive for both the property owner and the customer. A parking ramp cannot be a fortress.” Id. at 169.
What tipped the scale was the physical character of the facility — “its many levels, its supporting pillars, its stairwells, its relatively low ceilings, and its rows of unoccupied parked cars,” anyone able to enter from the street unobserved, the place “relatively deserted,” the unattended cars attracting thieves. Those characteristics “present a particular focus or unique opportunity for criminals and their criminal activities, an opportunity which to some degree is different from that presented out on the street and in the neighborhood generally.” Id.
Then came the holding, phrased as a jury instruction, and every word of it is load-bearing:
The operator or owner of a parking ramp facility has a duty to use reasonable care to deter criminal activity on its premises which may cause personal harm to customers. The care to be provided is that care which a reasonably prudent operator or owner would provide under like circumstances. Among the circumstances to be considered are the location and construction of the ramp, the practical feasibility and cost of various security measures, and the risk of personal harm to customers which the owner or operator knows, or in the exercise of due care should know, presents a reasonable likelihood of happening. In this connection, the owner or operator is not an insurer or guarantor of the safety of its premises and cannot be expected to prevent all criminal activity. The fact that a criminal assault occurs on the premises, standing alone, is not evidence that the duty to deter criminal acts has been breached.
Id. at 169–70.
Read what that instruction actually asks a jury to do. Not could this crime have been stopped. Rather: given this location, this construction, the cost and feasibility of the available measures, and the known likelihood of harm, did this owner do what a reasonably prudent owner would have done to deter? The court was candid that the jury in such a case “may be deciding not so much a conflict in the facts as making an evaluative policy judgment.” Id. at 170.
Cost is an element of the standard of care, not a defense to it. That is unusual, and it is the single most important thing a plaintiff’s expert has to engage with. An opinion that says “cameras would have helped” without engaging price, feasibility, and the risk actually known to the owner is not addressing the instruction the jury will receive.
Bars and hotels are governed by an older, different test
If the premises is an innkeeper — which in Minnesota includes bars — the analysis is not Erickson. It is a four-element test that predates it.
Boone v. Martinez, 567 N.W.2d 508 (Minn. 1997), states it:
In order to establish an innkeeper’s liability, a plaintiff must prove four elements: (1) the proprietor must be put on notice of the offending party’s vicious or dangerous propensities by some act or threat, (2) the proprietor must have an adequate opportunity to protect the injured patron, (3) the proprietor must fail to take reasonable steps to protect the injured patron, and (4) the injury must be foreseeable.
Id. at 510. Boone itself is a defense case and shows how demanding element one is: a stabbing in an Albert Lea bar, where the plaintiff’s evidence of notice consisted of a pool-cue fight outside the bar a year earlier that no employee was shown to know about, plus testimony that the assailant looked drunk and angry and “half-slam[med]” his beer. Neither was enough to reach a jury on vicious propensities. Id. at 510–11.
Henson v. Uptown Drink, LLC, 922 N.W.2d 185 (Minn. 2019), restated those elements, id. at 190, and then refused to let bars out of them by a different door. The bar argued implied primary assumption of risk. The court declined to extend the doctrine:
Although the service and consumption of alcohol can most certainly lead to incidents such as the one here, we have never considered operating and patronizing bars to be inherently dangerous activities. The operation and patronage of bars is not — and should not be — a contact sport. To the contrary, our precedent is clear that bar owners, as do all innkeepers, have a duty of care. As we have said, “Tavern owners in Minnesota have the duty to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances to protect their patrons from injury.”
Id. at 191 (quoting Alholm v. Wilt, 394 N.W.2d 488, 490 (Minn. 1986)). The court added the limiting principle in the same breath: “That is not to say that a bar owner’s liability is unlimited; the four well-established elements of innkeeper negligence — especially foreseeability — sufficiently mark the duty of innkeepers to prevent injuries.” Id.
And Henson shows what notice looks like when it is sufficient. The evidence was a timeline: 9:24 p.m., a server watches one patron and alerts a coworker; 9:34, the other patron is in an altercation and the bartender takes his drink and tells him to leave; 9:36, the general manager intervenes. On that record, “[e]ven before Sunby threw a punch and Anderson grabbed the manager, there was evidence of both obvious intoxication and problematic interactions with bar employees and other patrons,” and foreseeability had to go to the fact-finder. Id. at 192–93.
Where alcohol caused the intoxication that caused the harm, a dram shop claim under Minn. Stat. § 340A.801 usually rides alongside the innkeeper claim — with its own, much shorter notice deadline. See Minnesota’s dram shop notice deadline.
What changed in January 2026?
Glay v. R.C. of St. Cloud, Inc., No. A23-1464 (Minn. Jan. 28, 2026), is a wrongful death case out of the Red Carpet Nightclub in St. Cloud. Three men assaulted a patron on the dance floor. Staff removed the three assailants — and, contrary to the club’s own policy, did not text the other staff or the door, did not inform the front door of the removal, and did not wand the three men when all of them were back inside twenty minutes later. They found Unity McGill on the dance floor and stabbed him to death.
The jury found the club negligent — and found the negligence was not a direct cause. It never answered the superseding-cause question on the special verdict form.
The supreme court affirmed the court of appeals and ordered a new trial, holding that instructing on both innkeeper negligence and superseding intervening cause was “apt to confuse or mislead the jury by instructing it to make the very same determination twice.”
The core of the reasoning:
On the one hand, if a jury determines that the evidence fails to establish any one of the elements of innkeeper negligence — including foreseeability — then the jury must find the innkeeper was not negligent. In that situation, an instruction on superseding intervening cause is unnecessary because the jury will never reach the question of causation. On the other hand, in cases where the jury finds a defendant innkeeper negligent, it necessarily means the jury concluded that the patron’s injurious conduct [was] foreseeable. In that situation, the innkeeper cannot establish that the patron’s conduct giving rise to the innkeeper’s negligence was also a superseding intervening cause because, as a matter of law, foreseeable conduct cannot be a superseding intervening cause.
The four-element superseding cause test is where the argument dies. Glay quotes it from Wartnick v. Moss & Barnett, 490 N.W.2d 108, 113 (Minn. 1992), which quoted Rieger v. Zackoski, 321 N.W.2d 16, 21 (Minn. 1982): the intervening cause’s harmful effects must have occurred after the original negligence; it must not have been brought about by the original negligence; it must actively work to bring about a result that would not otherwise have followed; and it must not have been reasonably foreseeable by the original wrongdoer. A finding of innkeeper negligence necessarily negates the fourth element.
The court also rejected, expressly, the argument that a murder can never be foreseeable. The club had relied on Anderson v. Theisen, 43 N.W.2d 272 (Minn. 1950), for the proposition that an intentional criminal act by a third person always breaks the chain. Glay answered with Wallinga v. Johnson, 131 N.W.2d 216 (Minn. 1964), a case about rings stolen from a hotel safe:
As a general rule, a criminal act breaks the chain of causation and insulates the primary actor from liability. A criminal intervening force, however, cannot be a legally effective superseding cause unless it possesses the attribute of unforeseeability. The original actor cannot claim immunity from liability for loss when the possibility that third persons will act in a certain manner is one of the hazards he should guard against.
Wallinga, 131 N.W.2d at 219–20, quoted in Glay.
And Glay is the third case in a line, which is why it should be read as settled rather than novel. The court traced the same logic through Crohn v. Dupre, 190 N.W.2d 678 (Minn. 1971) — a landowner case where a jury found negligence and then found no direct cause, and the supreme court held the two answers “clearly inconsistent” — and through Ponticas v. K.M.S. Investments, 331 N.W.2d 907 (Minn. 1983), the negligent hiring case, which had already held that “[t]he inherent nature of a negligent hiring cause of action precludes the application of superseding intervening cause,” id. at 915–16.
Glay generalized the principle: “Like the defendants in Crohn and Ponticas, R.C. owed a duty to protect a certain class of persons — its patrons — from foreseeable harm caused by a third party.” Where the duty is defined by foreseeability of third-party harm, the same third-party harm cannot supersede.
One caution, in the court’s own words. The holding is tied to identity of conduct: “What is important is that, in this case, the harmful event or conduct which must have been foreseeable to establish innkeeper negligence and the conduct that R.C. claims is a superseding intervening cause are the same: the three assailants’ attack on another patron. This may not always be the case.” Where a defendant identifies a genuinely different intervening act, the instruction may still be available.
Does the judge decide foreseeability, or the jury?
Both, depending on the record, and it is worth knowing which one you are arguing to.
Boone states the default: “Foreseeability is a threshold issue and is more properly decided by the court prior to submitting the case to the jury.” 567 N.W.2d at 510 (citing Alholm, 394 N.W.2d at 491 n.5). The standard jury instruction for innkeeper negligence, CIVJIG 85.70, reflects that — it lists three elements and does not ask the jury about foreseeability at all.
The Glay district court added a fourth foreseeability element to the instruction, and the supreme court noted in a footnote that although foreseeability is often decided by the court as a matter of law, “[u]nder certain circumstances … the question of foreseeability may be submitted to the jury,” citing Montemayor v. Sebright Products, Inc., 898 N.W.2d 623, 629 (Minn. 2017), and Domagala v. Rolland, 805 N.W.2d 14, 27 (Minn. 2011). Glay did not disturb that practice; it disturbed the pairing of that instruction with a superseding-cause instruction on the same facts.
Practically: on a close record, foreseeability goes to the jury, and once it does, the defendant has lost the ability to argue causation through superseding cause.
Can I sue the security company?
Yes, and on a theory that does not depend on who hired it.
Erickson had a second holding on exactly this. The security firm argued it had contracted only with the hotel, not with the parking operator, so it owed nothing to the operator’s customer. The court rejected the argument on two independent grounds. First, factually: “Leadens undertook to patrol the entire ramp without distinguishing between Curtis’ patrons and Allright’s customers. … In short, Leadens owed a duty of care to Ms. Erickson because it undertook that duty.” 447 N.W.2d at 170.
Second, and more usefully, under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 324A: liability attaches to one who “undertakes for another (whether gratuitously or for a consideration) to perform a duty owed by the other to a third person.” Id. The court held the security firm’s “duty to use that degree of care which a reasonably prudent professional security firm would use was owed also to plaintiff,” and that breach and causation were fact questions where the guard had walked past the car during a twenty-five minute assault. Id. at 170–71.
That last point is the practical lesson. The theory against a security vendor is usually not that it should have had more guards. It is that the guard it did have performed the round badly.
The assailant is judgment-proof. Who pays?
This is where the real money question lives, and Minnesota’s apportionment statute produces an outcome that surprises clients.
Start with the definition of “fault.” Minn. Stat. § 604.01, subd. 1a: “‘Fault’ includes acts or omissions that are in any measure negligent or reckless toward the person or property of the actor or others, or that subject a person to strict tort liability.” Breach of warranty, unreasonable assumption of risk, misuse of a product, failure to mitigate, and the § 340A.801 complicity defense are added by name. Intentional torts are not in the list.
Then the apportionment statute. Minn. Stat. § 604.02, subd. 1: “When two or more persons are severally liable, contributions to awards shall be in proportion to the percentage of fault attributable to each, except that the following persons are jointly and severally liable for the whole award: (1) a person whose fault is greater than 50 percent; (2) two or more persons who act in a common scheme or plan that results in injury; (3) a person who commits an intentional tort; or (4) [environmental and public health liabilities].”
So the assailant — the one person with no money — is jointly and severally liable for the entire award. The business, if found 30 percent at fault, is severally liable for 30 percent.
And Staab forecloses the workaround. In Staab v. Diocese of St. Cloud, 813 N.W.2d 68 (Minn. 2012), a jury apportioned fault 50/50 between the sole defendant and a nonparty. The plaintiff argued the statute could not apply because a nonparty is not “liable.” The supreme court disagreed, holding that liability arises “at the instant the tort is committed,” not at judgment, and “that section 604.02 applies whenever multiple tortfeasors act to cause an indivisible harm to a victim, regardless of how many of those tortfeasors are named as parties in a lawsuit arising from that tort.” Id. at 77. A severally liable defendant “is responsible for only his or her equitable share of the award.” Id. at 74.
The one lever left is reallocation. Minn. Stat. § 604.02, subd. 2: “Upon motion made not later than one year after judgment is entered, the court shall determine whether all or part of a party’s equitable share of the obligation is uncollectible from that party and shall reallocate any uncollectible amount among the other parties, including a claimant at fault, according to their respective percentages of fault.” By its terms it reallocates among parties, which is a reason to join the assailant even when he plainly cannot pay — and a reason to calendar the one-year deadline the day judgment enters. On the broader mechanics see joint and several liability in Minnesota and comparative fault and collateral sources.
One threshold question in this area is genuinely open. Whether a jury should be asked to compare the fault of a negligent defendant against an intentional tortfeasor at all — given that § 604.01, subd. 1a does not define intentional conduct as “fault” — was squarely presented in Glay on cross-petition. The supreme court granted review on it and then declined to answer, noting that its remand for a new trial made the question unnecessary and that the court of appeals had not addressed it either. Glay, No. A23-1464, slip op. at 3 n.1. Anyone litigating apportionment in a third-party-crime case should treat the question as unresolved in Minnesota and preserve it.
What the evidence in these cases actually looks like
Two opinions supply the template, and it is not the template most people expect.
From Erickson, the environmental record: roughly 85 “security incidents” in the ramp over three to four years, though never a crime against a person; hundreds of “security related incidents” in the attached hotel, of debatable relevance; a letter from the hotel manager to the ward’s council member less than two months before the rape, reporting increased crime inside and outside the hotel and customer safety concerns; a public meeting where similar concerns were aired; and expert criticism of lighting, unmonitored street access, patrol frequency, absent signage, guard training and supervision, and decreasing security at a time of increasing crime. One expert testified that “there is a potential for crimes of personal violence where property crimes occur.” 447 N.W.2d at 167–68.
That last opinion is the bridge. Property crime is the statistic these facilities generate; violent crime is what the plaintiff was injured by. Connecting the two is expert work.
From Glay, the compliance record: the club had a policy of removing anyone involved in a fight; a policy that security staff text one another and notify the door about anyone ejected. No text went out. No evidence the door was told. All three assailants were back inside within twenty minutes. They were not wanded.
The most damaging evidence in a negligent security case is usually the defendant’s own written policy. It establishes what the business itself considered reasonable, it forecloses the feasibility and cost arguments Erickson invites, and the gap between the policy and the night in question is what a jury remembers.
The corollary for businesses is uncomfortable but real: a written security protocol that is not followed is worse than no protocol. That is not a reason to write nothing. It is a reason to audit.
Where this leaves the case
Minnesota does not make a business an insurer of its premises, and Erickson says so in the instruction itself. A crime on the property is not, standing alone, evidence of anything.
But the doctrinal escape hatches have narrowed. Henson refused to hand bars an assumption-of-risk defense. Glay took away the superseding-cause instruction wherever the intervening crime is the same crime the duty was meant to guard against. What is left is the ordinary work of a negligence case: duty, notice, feasible measures, and what the defendant’s own rules said it would do.
The harder problem is not liability. It is that the person who did the harming is jointly and severally liable for everything and owns nothing, while the business that failed to deter is severally liable for its share — which means the size of the verdict and the size of the recovery are two different numbers. Understanding that gap before the case is filed is what determines whether it should be.
For the claims against the person who actually committed the assault, including the insurance exclusion that usually makes that defendant uncollectible, see suing someone who hit you. For the ordinary premises claim that does not involve a third party’s crime, see Minnesota premises liability for snow and ice.
Madgett Law, LLC handles Minnesota negligent security and innkeeper negligence claims — bars, hotels, apartment complexes, parking facilities, and the security contractors that patrol them — including the notice-and-foreseeability record these cases turn on and the apportionment analysis that determines what a verdict is actually worth. Surveillance video and incident logs are usually overwritten in weeks. If you were attacked on someone else’s property, the preservation letter is the first thing that has to go out. Send us a message or call 612-470-6529.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 604.01 (comparative fault — subd. 1a, the definition of “fault,” which reaches negligent, reckless, and strict-liability conduct and does not enumerate intentional torts); Minn. Stat. § 604.02 (apportionment of damages — subd. 1, several liability as the default and the four exceptions imposing joint and several liability, including subd. 1(3), “a person who commits an intentional tort”; subd. 2, reallocation of uncollectible amounts on motion made not later than one year after judgment is entered) (Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes, current statutes). Cases: Glay v. R.C. of St. Cloud, Inc., No. A23-1464 (Minn. Jan. 28, 2026) (syllabus point 2 and holding that a jury should not be instructed on superseding intervening cause where the conduct claimed to be superseding is the same conduct that must be foreseeable to establish innkeeper negligence; “as a matter of law, foreseeable conduct cannot be a superseding intervening cause”; the four-element superseding cause test quoted from Wartnick v. Moss & Barnett, 490 N.W.2d 108, 113 (Minn. 1992), quoting Rieger v. Zackoski, 321 N.W.2d 16, 21 (Minn. 1982); the rejection of Anderson v. Theisen, 43 N.W.2d 272 (Minn. 1950), as establishing a per se rule, and the passage quoted from Wallinga v. Johnson, 131 N.W.2d 216, 219–20 (Minn. 1964); the parallel to Crohn v. Dupre, 190 N.W.2d 678 (Minn. 1971), and Ponticas v. K.M.S. Investments, 331 N.W.2d 907, 915–16 (Minn. 1983); the “this may not always be the case” limitation; slip op. at 3 n.1, declining to reach whether fault may be compared between a negligent tortfeasor and intentional tortfeasors; slip op. at 7 n.6, on when foreseeability may be submitted to the jury, citing Montemayor v. Sebright Products, Inc., 898 N.W.2d 623, 629 (Minn. 2017), and Domagala v. Rolland, 805 N.W.2d 14, 27 (Minn. 2011); the CIVJIG 85.70 three-element standard instruction; and the trial record concerning R.C.’s removal, notification, and wanding policies) (Minnesota Judicial Branch slip opinion, mn.gov/law-library-stat/archive/supct/2026/); Erickson v. Curtis Investment Co., 447 N.W.2d 165, 167–71 (Minn. 1989) (the special-relationship framing at 168; “a mere merchant-customer relationship is not enough” at 168; the policy discussion and “a parking ramp cannot be a fortress” at 169; the duty-to-deter holding and its enumerated circumstances, the “not an insurer or guarantor” language, and the “standing alone, is not evidence” language at 169–70; the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 324A undertaking analysis as to the security firm at 170–71; the security-incident, correspondence, and expert record at 167–68); Harper v. Herman, 499 N.W.2d 472, 474 (Minn. 1993) (the affirmative-duty rule quoted from Delgado v. Lohmar, 289 N.W.2d 479, 483 (Minn. 1979); the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 314A list of special relationships; superior knowledge alone insufficient); H.B. ex rel. Clark v. Whittemore, 552 N.W.2d 705, 707–09 (Minn. 1996) (general no-duty rule at 707; special relationships “typically involve some degree of dependence” at 708; entrustment must be accepted, at 708–09; the “outer boundaries” characterization of the Harper list at 709); Boone v. Martinez, 567 N.W.2d 508, 510–11 (Minn. 1997) (the four elements of innkeeper liability; foreseeability as a threshold issue citing Alholm v. Wilt, 394 N.W.2d 488, 491 n.5 (Minn. 1986); insufficiency of the notice evidence); Henson v. Uptown Drink, LLC, 922 N.W.2d 185, 190–93 (Minn. 2019) (restating the Boone elements; declining to extend implied primary assumption of risk to the operation and patronage of bars; “not — and should not be — a contact sport”; the tavern-owner duty quoted from Alholm, 394 N.W.2d at 490; the timeline evidence sufficient to send foreseeability to the fact-finder); Ponticas v. K.M.S. Investments, 331 N.W.2d 907, 915–16 (Minn. 1983) (superseding intervening cause unavailable in a negligent hiring case); Staab v. Diocese of St. Cloud, 813 N.W.2d 68, 74, 77 (Minn. 2012) (a severally liable defendant is responsible only for its equitable share; § 604.02 applies whenever multiple tortfeasors cause an indivisible harm regardless of how many are named as parties) (Caselaw Access Project, static.case.law). This article is general legal information about Minnesota law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Every case depends on its own facts. No outcome is promised or implied.