Katerina Galanis v. CMA Management Company, 175 So. 3d 1213

Bobby Batiste, an existing tenant, submitted a resident concern form stating he was frustrated with a prior roommate and wrote he didn’t "want to get violent" and didn’t "want to take matters into my own hands." 21 Apartments retained that form.
21 Apartments initially denied Batiste a lease renewal after a new background-check policy revealed a criminal history, but later allowed renewal after Batiste’s attorney explained the record was a nonadjudicated probation.
Andreas Galanis applied to rent and completed a roommate-matching process; 21 Apartments introduced Galanis and Batiste without disclosing Batiste’s complaint or criminal-history information, and they became roommates.
Galanis discovered funds missing in March 2008; he was murdered by Batiste shortly thereafter. Batiste was later convicted and sentenced for the murder.
Galanis’s family sued 21 Apartments for premises-liability (failure to warn; failure to provide safe premises) and for breach of an assumed duty to perform adequate background checks. The trial court granted summary judgment for 21 Apartments; the Court of Appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the landlord owed a duty under premises-liability to warn tenant of roommate's violent tendencies	21 Apartments had actual knowledge (Batiste’s resident form) and thus owed a duty to warn/inform Galanis	No actual or constructive knowledge of violent tendencies; no duty to protect from unforeseeable third-party crime	Reversed: resident form, viewed in plaintiff’s favor, creates a genuine factual issue whether 21 Apartments had actual knowledge and thus owed a duty to warn
Whether 21 Apartments assumed a heightened duty by performing background checks and running a roommate-matching program	The screening and matching were voluntary undertakings that created an additional duty to perform those tasks with reasonable care	Those activities do not create a separate duty beyond ordinary premises-liability duties owed to invitees	Majority: no separate assumed heightened duty; claim proceeds under premises-liability only. (Concurrence: would allow both theories)
Whether summary judgment was proper on the knowledge/breach issue	Plaintiff: factual dispute exists about meaning and import of Batiste’s statements and 21 Apartments’ handling of background information	Defendant: the resident form alone is insufficient as a matter of law to show knowledge of violent propensities	Summary judgment improper: draw all reasonable inferences for nonmovant; jury must decide credibility/meaning and whether duty/breach existed

Brown v. Credit Ctr., Inc., 444 So.2d 358 (Miss. 1983) (summary-judgment standard and procedural principles)
Grisham v. John Q. Long V. F.W. Post, No. 4057, Inc., 519 So.2d 413 (Miss. 1988) (premises-liability duty discussion)
Lyle v. Mladinich, 584 So.2d 397 (Miss. 1991) (duty to protect invitees from third-party criminal acts)
Leffler v. Sharp, 891 So.2d 152 (Miss. 2004) (foreseeability and invitee protections)
Double Quick, Inc. v. Lymas, 50 So.3d 292 (Miss. 2010) (foreseeability and intervening criminal acts)
Rein v. Benchmark Constr. Co., 865 So.2d 1134 (Miss. 2004) (summary-judgment review principles)
Olier v. Bailey, 164 So.3d 982 (Miss. 2015) (standard of review on summary judgment)
Doe ex rel. Doe v. Wright Sec. Servs., Inc., 950 So.2d 1076 (Miss. Ct. App. 2007) (assumed-duty-by-contract theory distinguishing security-contract obligations)
Batiste v. State, 121 So.3d 808 (Miss. 2013) (criminal conviction and sentencing of Batiste)