Plaintiffs appeal as of right from the trial court’s order granting defendant’s motion for summary disposition. MCR 2.116(C)(8). We reverse and remand for further proceedings.
Plaintiffs’ complaint alleges that at 2 a.m. on August 17, 1985, plaintiffs and two companions *204 parked their automobile in defendant’s parking lot. Plaintiffs and their friends observed a group of seven or eight people standing outside of another vehicle. These people were drinking alcohol, using obscenities and "noticeably acting like disorderly persons.” Plaintiffs and their companions ignored the group and entered the restaurant. Forty minutes later, plaintiffs and their friends left defendant’s business and plaintiffs were attacked by the same group of unruly persons they had observed earlier. During the attack, one of plaintiffs’ companions reentered defendant’s establishment and asked the manager to call the police. The manager refused to call the police, refused to allow plaintiffs’ friend to call the police and told plaintiffs’ friend to go across the street and use a public telephone to summon the police. Defendant’s restaurant was located at Eight Mile and Gratiot Roads. Plaintiffs further alleged that the delay in summoning the police allowed the unruly group to continue its attack and, in fаct, to leave the area before the police arrived. Specifically, plaintiffs alleged that defendant was negligent in failing to maintain its premises in a safe and prudent manner because it allowed unruly patrons to congregate in its parking lot and, thereby, to attack plaintiffs and because it failed, refused or neglected to allow plaintiffs’ friend to call the police so that they could aid рlaintiffs.
Defendant moved for summary disposition, claiming that plaintiffs had failed to state a cause of action upon which relief could be granted. Defendant read plaintiffs’ complaint as alleging that it owеd plaintiffs a duty to protect them from attack by unknown third persons or to intercede on their behalf when the attack occurred. Defendant claimed that plaintiffs were, in reality, alleging that it owed them a duty tо provide police *205 protection. Defendant alleged that it owed no such duty. Defendant further alleged that even if its employees had called the police there was no guarantee that thе police would have responded.
The trial court granted defendant’s motion, holding that defendant did not owe plaintiffs a duty to protect them from assaults by third persons.
A motion for summary disposition for failure to stаte a claim upon which relief can .be granted, MCR 2.116(C)(8), is tested by the pleadings alone.
Beaudin
v
Michigan Bell Telephone Co,
In
Williams v Cunningham Drug Stores, Inc,
Our Supreme Court noted:
In determining standards of conduct in the area of negligence, the courts have made a distinction *206 between misfeasance, or active misconduct causing personal injury, and nonfeasance, which is passive inaction or the failure to actively protect others frоm harm. The common law has been slow in recognizing liability for nonfeasance because the courts are reluctant to force persons to help one another and because such conduct does not create a new risk of harm to a potential plaintiff. Thus, as a general rule, there is no duty that obligates one person to aid or protect another.
Social policy, however, has led the courts to recognize an exception to this general rule where a special relationship exists between a plaintiff and a defendant. Thus, a common carrier may be obligated to рrotect its passengers, an innkeeper his guests, and an employer his employees. The rationale behind imposing a duty to protect in these special relationships is based on control. In eaсh situation one person entrusts himself to the control and protection of another, with a consequent loss of control to protect himself. The duty to protect is imposed upon the person in control because he is best able to provide a place of safety.
Owners and occupiers of land are in a special relationship with their invitees and comprise the largest group upon whom an affirmative duty to protect is imposed. The possessor of land has a duty to exercise reasonable care to protect invitees from an unreasonable risk of harm caused by a dangerоus condition of the land. Consequently, a landlord may be held liable for an unreasonable risk of harm caused by a dangerous condition in the areas of common use retained in his control such as lobbies, hallways, stairways and elevators. Likewise, a business invitor or merchant may be held liable for injuries resulting from negligent maintenance of the premises or defects in the physical structure of the building.
The duty a possessor of land owes his invitees is not absolute, however. It does not extend to conditions from which an unreasonable risk cannot be anticipated or to dangers so obvious and apparent that an invitee may be еxpected to discover them *207 himself. Furthermore, "the occupier is not an insurer of the safety of invitees, and his duty is only to exercise reasonable care for their protection.” [Id. at 498-500, quoting Prosser & Keeton, Torts (5th ed), § 61, p 425.]
The Court then held that аs a matter of law a merchant’s duty of reasonable care does not include providing armed, visible security guards to deter criminal acts of third parties.
Id.
at 501. While the Court noted that 2 Restatement Torts, 2d, §344, pp 223-224, provided that a business owner is subject to liability for physical harm caused by the intentional acts of third parties, it declined to apply that section to the
Williams
facts because of the public policy cоncerns underlying its decision.
We believe that the facts in this case are easily distinguished from those in Williams. Plaintiffs first alleged that defendant should have ejected intoxicated, unruly patrons from its premises. This type of allegation is different from a claim that defendant could have prevented the assault on plaintiffs by providing armed and visible security guards. In faсt, defendant was in a position to control the unruly patrons’ actions or to eject them from its premises. Plaintiffs’ allegations are sufficient to support an inference that defendant had or should have hаd knowledge about the unruly patrons’ presence on its premises. Hence, plaintiffs did state a claim upon which relief could be granted.
Moreover, to the extent that Williams suggests that merchants have no duty to intervene in a criminal act of whiсh they become aware, id. at 497-498, we find this case distinguishable on the policy rationales discussed in Williams. Here, defendant was not asked to provide police protection to plaintiffs. Instead, defendant’s еmployees were asked to summon the police or to allow plaintiffs’ companion to summon the police. Self-help was not required and defendant was informed of the extent of the criminal aсtivity. Hence, we believe that these specific acts alleged by plaintiffs could result in a breach of defendant’s duty to exercise reasonable care for its invitees’ protection and, therefore, plaintiffs did state a claim upon which relief could be granted.
Defendant also claims that its employees’ failure to eject the unruly persons or to summon the police or to allow plaintiffs’ companion to summon the police was not the proximate cause of plain
*209
tiffs’ injuries. Proximate cause is a question of fact for the jury unless reasonable men would not differ as to whether defendant’s alleged breaches of duty were not the cause of plaintiffs’ injuries or were too insignificantly connected to or too remotely affected by defendant’s breaches of duty. See, e.g.,
Fiser v Ann Arbor,
Reversed and remanded for further proceedings.