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Veytsman v. New York Palace
State: Maryland
Court: Court of Appeals
Docket No: 2545/04
Case Date: 09/08/2006
Preview:REPORTED IN THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS OF MARYLAND No. 2545 September Term, 2004

EDWARD VEYTSMAN, ET AL. v. NEW YORK PALACE, INC.

Hollander, Adkins, Barbera, JJ.

Opinion by Adkins, J.

Filed: September 8, 2006

In this appeal, we consider Maryland tort law concerning the duty of a restaurant or tavern owner to patrons who were assaulted on the business premises by other patrons. After they were

assaulted by fellow guests inside the New York Palace restaurant, Edward and Tatyana Veytsman filed suit against the restaurant in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. At the end of a three-day

jury trial, the circuit court granted the restaurant's motion for judgment as a matter of law, ruling that the Veytsmans failed to present sufficient evidence that the New York Palace owed a duty to protect them against the assault or to prevent it. argue on appeal that this decision was erroneous. the trial court and will therefore affirm. FACTS AND JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS Background The New York Palace is a restaurant in the Bolton Hill neighborhood of Baltimore City.1 The restaurant "caters in large The Veytsmans We agree with

part to the Russian population of Baltimore and surrounding areas." It has a capacity of 363 people and is also a hosting facility for parties and receptions. On Sunday, August 12, 2001, the New York Palace hosted a wedding reception. The newlyweds knew the owners of the restaurant well, and had been to the restaurant many times before. There were

Because the trial court granted New York Palace's motion for judgment, our recitation of the facts will be in the light most favorable to the Veytsmans. See Echard v. Kraft, 159 Md. App. 110, 114 (2004)(setting forth evidence on appeal in light most favorable to non-moving party).

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between 40 and 60 guests at the reception.

The guests arrived A

between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m., and were seated by 6:00 p.m.

significant amount of alcohol was consumed during the wedding reception, which lasted until sometime between 1:00 a.m. and 2:00 a.m. In addition to the vodka, wine, and cognac provided by the

restaurant, Vyacheslav Drakh, the manager, observed that guests had brought their own Ukranian vodka into the restaurant. The guests

had been drinking "since the time they got in, since the beginning of the party," and were therefore "drunk." Alexi Litovka, a waiter for the wedding party, was "really scared of that wedding" because "there were lots of extremely big men" in attendance "and you can expect like anything to happen from that." Litovka "wouldn't say that [the men] were doing anything

bad, and "didn't see them doing any fighting[.]" "But it wasn't like . . . other wedding parties where everything was more

civilized[.]" According to Drakh, there were "no security problems or behavioral issues with the wedding party" during the reception. A co-owner, Lev Nemirovsky, likewise believed that the "behavior" at the wedding was "[t]he same as the other hundred." The Assault After the wedding reception was well underway, around 11:30 p.m., Edward and Tatyana Veytsman arrived at the New York Palace to have dinner with their friends, Leonid and Svetlana Barmak. The

Veytsmans had been personally invited to the restaurant by Drakh,

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who called them at home that evening to extend the invitation. Other than the wedding reception and the Veytsman-Barmak party, which was seated in a different part of the restaurant, there were only a handful of other guests. At some point between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m., the reception came to a close, and the guests began to board a charter bus parked outside of the restaurant. Around the same time, the Veytsmans and Barmaks prepared to leave. First, Mrs. Barmak used the restroom.

While inside, Mrs. Barmak made "a comment about the mess in the bathroom," stating that she could "hardly use the bathroom because it's messy."2 One of the wedding reception guests reported to Sam

Levin, a co-owner of the New York Palace, that Mrs. Barmak was in the restroom, hitting the sister of the bride with a shoe. Levin

went to the bathroom, where he saw Mrs. Barmak holding a shoe and fighting with the bride's sister. He believed that Mrs. Barmak was "totally drunk." Mr. Veytsman and Mr. Barmak met Levin at the

restroom, where Levin watched Mrs. Barmak "ask[] her husband, `Why you not a man? You are supposed to fight for me.'" According to

Levin, "Mr. Barmak and Mr. Veytsman did not want to fight," and they "assure[d]" him that they would calm Mrs. Barmak down.

"Tatyana [Veytsman] and her husband personally sa[id] don't worry, Sam, everything is fine." After "everything [was] calmed down and

The guests of the traditional Ukranian wedding reception had utilized the women's bathroom as a dressing area to don various traditional Ukranian garments for dances at the reception. 3

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everybody [was] calmed down," Levin went back to his office. Mrs. Barmak returned to the bathroom with Mrs. Veytsman. When the two women entered the restroom, "suddenly this one woman runs in and starts to scream at Mrs. Barmak saying[,] . . . [`]did you say that my wedding stink up the bathroom[?']" Mrs. Barmak and the Mrs.

other women began to argue and physically fight again.3

Veytsman tried to end the fight, but, finding herself unsuccessful, started to leave the bathroom to get help. She opened the bathroom A woman then

door, but was immediately hit in the face by a man.

jumped on top of Mrs. Veytsman and was "hitting her hardly" "trying to just, you know, knock [her] face over the floor." From his

table across the room, Mr. Veytsman heard his wife cry out, and got up to go to her aid. in the eye. When he reached the lobby, a person hit him

He fell to the ground, where he was kicked repeatedly Although Mrs. Veytsman did not suffer permanent

in the head.

injuries, Mr. Veytsman was hospitalized for several days, and ultimately one of his eyes had to be surgically removed. Immediately before the assault, the only members of the

Under the Barmaks' and Veytsmans' version of the events, there was only one scuffle in the bathroom. Levin, however, testified to two: the first, which involved only Mrs. Barmak and which he calmed down, and the second, involving Mrs. Veytsman also. Because proof of a prior incident is evidence supporting the Veytsmans' claim that the restaurant had a duty to protect them, we include it here, as we must review the evidence in the light most favorable to the Veytsmans. See James v. Gen. Motors Corp., 74 Md. App. 479, 484-85, cert. denied, 313 Md. 7 (1988)(appellate review of grant of motion for judgment requires us to apply the same standard as the trial court). 4

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wedding party remaining in the restaurant were the bride, the bride's sister, and their mother. Nemirovsky, another owner, had

already escorted all of the other guests outside to the charter bus. While he was standing outside near the restaurant door

talking to the bride's father, Nemirovsky watched six to ten people get off the bus. He opened the door for these people to go back He did not know why they wanted to go back

inside the restaurant.

inside the restaurant, as he was involved talking to the bride's father. After a few seconds, he followed the men inside the

restaurant, where he watched them talking very loudly and angrily. "Several seconds" after that, he then saw that "everybody started to fight." "It took ten or fifteen seconds."

Drakh similarly observed that the men who reentered the restaurant
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