Commonwealth v. Welansky
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
316 Mass. 383, 55 N.E.2d 902 (1944)
Barnett Welansky (defendant) owned and personally controlled a Boston nightclub, the Cocoanut Grove, operated through a corporation from which he took all the profits; the club had roughly 1,000 patrons on the night in question, only two easily usable main entrances, and five poorly marked, largely inaccessible emergency exits, several of which were locked or blocked (one specifically to prevent patrons from leaving without paying). While Welansky was hospitalized, a bar employee lit a match to see a light bulb near an artificial palm tree, igniting the tree and then a low-hanging cloth decoration; the fire spread rapidly, trapping and killing many patrons and employees who could not escape through the inadequate exits. Welansky was convicted of numerous counts of involuntary manslaughter based on the overcrowding, flammable decorations, absence of functioning fire doors, and inadequate means of egress, and he appealed.
Whether, if a defendant owes a duty of care for the safety of business visitors invited to premises he controls, the defendant acts wantonly or recklessly by intentionally failing to take appropriate care in disregard of the probable harmful consequences to those visitors, even without personally, subjectively foreseeing the risk, and whether such wanton or reckless conduct is sufficient to support involuntary manslaughter.