KWMC Obtains Summary judgment in Assault Case

KWMC partner, Heather Aquino, and senior associate, John Iannone, were successful in a motion for summary judgment in an intentional tort case venued in the New Jersey Superior Court, Bergen County.  Plaintiffs claimed that they were assaulted by a snow removal contractor’s employees while they were using the ATM machine at the client’s bank.  The alleged perpetrators were not employed by the bank’s snow removal contractor, but rather were employed by a sub-sub-contractor, with no relationship to the bank.  Therefore, it was argued that our client (a) owed no duty of care, as the perpetrators has no agency to the bank, and the incident was not reasonably foreseeable; and (b) even if a duty of care was owed, there is no evidence that any act or omission by the bank was a proximate cause of the incident.  The Court found that no rational factfinder could conclude that the bank’s conduct or omission was the proximate cause of the injuries alleged.  As a result, in an Order dated October 6, 2026, Judge Gregg A. Padovano granted our client’s summary judgment motion, dismissing the complaint.