Daniel Chao successfully defended a personal injury action for the landlord via summary judgment for lack of vicarious or premises liability. The case, venued in Supreme Court, Ulster County, involved a supposed assault on the plaintiff by an employee of a co-defendant (and tenant) bar. The plaintiff claimed that the employee attacked him for no reason in the bar and then followed him into the parking lot with some friends where they beat him again. The plaintiff alleged that the landlord was negligent for hiring the employee and for failing to properly safeguard the premises. Daniel argued that the defendant was a landlord who was not responsible for tenant’s hiring decisions and could not have prevented the unexpected assault by the tenant’s employee. The Court absolved the defendant of all liability because it agreed that the defendant had no control over the tenant’s operations and no duty to protect the premises from unforeseeable assaults such as the one alleged.