Take out a map and draw a circle with a 250-mile radius from any
U.S. airport. Now, put yourself in the airport, behind the car
rental counter, and imagine a couple from Holland comes to rent a
car. Must you warn them about particular "high-crime" urban
neighborhoods within that 200,000 square miles?
A Florida jury said yes, and ordered Alamo to pay $5.2 million
to the family of a customer who was killed during a robbery attempt
in Miami in 1996. The victim and her husband, who had rented the
car in Tampa, were lost in Miami and had stopped at a gas station
to ask for directions when the incident occurred.
Miami is over 250 road miles from Tampa via I-75. How could the
jury reach so far? Could this have happened if the couple had
rented a car at Washington Dulles and wandered, days later, into
one of New York's "bad" neighborhoods, 250 miles to the north?
No, you say, that would be preposterous. But it was not
preposterous for the Miami jury precisely because the victim's
family was able to argue that crime against tourists was
"reasonably foreseeable" in this particular Miami neighborhood.
For several years, criminals in the area had targeted tourists
in rental cars, and the crime wave began to recede only after local
officials improved the signage on the roads and car rental
companies removed identifying tags and stickers from their
vehicles.
Things had improved by 1996, but the damage had been done. It
had become possible to argue that tourist crime in the area was
"reasonably foreseeable."
This verdict threatens to create an unreasonable standard for
all sellers of travel, agents and suppliers alike. It is wrong, and
Alamo is right to appeal.
But a lesson should be learned.
When criminals are allowed to prey upon tourists for any
extended period of time, as they did in north Miami in the early
1990s, we all become victims in more ways than we can know.