In Scott v. Watson, 278 Md. 160, 165, 359 A.2d 548 (1976), the Court of Appeals was presented with the issue of whether the landlord of an urban apartment complex had a duty to protect tenants from the criminal acts of third parties committed in common areas within the landlord's control. The Court ultimately concluded that a duty would be imposed on the landlord only if the landlord had knowledge of increased criminal activity and if the premises were thereby rendered unsafe. Scott was shot and killed by an unknown assailant in the underground parking garage in his apartment building. Id. at 162. In the months immediately preceding Scott's death, records from the Baltimore City Police Department indicated that numerous violent incidents were reported to have been committed on or near the apartment premises. Id. at 164. Scott's estate brought a wrongful death action against the apartment complex claiming that it "had breached a duty owed to Scott as one of its tenants to protect him from criminal acts of third parties committed in common areas within its control, and that the breach of duty proximately caused Scott's death." Id. at 161. The Court of Appeals, called upon to answer several questions certified to it by the United States District Court of Maryland, stated that, as a general rule, "if the landlord knows, or should know, of criminal activity against persons or property in the common areas, he then has a duty to take reasonable measures, in view of the existing circumstances, to eliminate the conditions contributing to the criminal activity." Id. at 169. Scott v. Watson, involved the murder of a residential tenant. The building was a multistory structure which had retail shops on the ground level and 290 apartment units occupying fifteen floors above that level. The murder occurred in a common area, an underground parking garage. In a period of approximately one and one-half years preceding the murder, fifty-six crimes against property and sixteen crimes against persons were reported to have been committed on or near the apartment premises. Id. at 163-64, 359 A.2d at 551. The Court was asked, under the Uniform Certification of Questions of Law Act, to opine on "whether a duty is imposed upon the landlord to protect his tenants from criminal acts of third parties where he has knowledge of increasing criminal activity on the premises, or in the immediate neighborhood." Id. at 168, 359 A.2d at 553. In response the Court said: "The duty of the landlord to exercise reasonable care for the safety of his tenants in common areas under his control is sufficiently flexible to be applied to cases involving criminal activity without making the landlord an insurer of his tenant's safety. If the landlord knows, or should know, of criminal activity against persons or property in the common areas, he then has a duty to take reasonable measures, in view of the existing circumstances, to eliminate the conditions contributing to the criminal activity. We think this duty arises primarily from criminal activities existing on the landlord's premises, and not from knowledge of general criminal activities in the neighborhood. Every person in society is subject to the risk of personal injury or property damage from criminal activity, both inside and outside his abode. The risk obviously varies with the time and locale. Since the landlord can affect the risk only within his own premises, ordinarily only criminal acts occurring on the landlord's premises, and of which he knows or should have known (and not those occurring generally in the surrounding neighborhood) constitute relevant factors in determining, in the particular circumstances, the reasonable measures which a landlord is under a duty to take to keep the premises safe." Id. at 169, 359 A.2d at 554. In Scott v. Watson the Court of Appeals flatly held that "there is no special duty imposed upon the landlord to protect his tenants against crimes perpetrated by third parties on the landlord's premises. " 278 Md. at 166, 359 A.2d at 552. Citing the principal cases decided up to that time (1976), the Court observed that "this is the general rule in other jurisdictions." Id. The Court in Scott then said: "The general rule is a subsidiary of the broader rule that a private person is under no special duty to protect another from criminal acts by a third person, in the absence of statutes, or of a special relationship. See Restatement of Torts (Second) 315 (1965) (no duty to control third person's conduct so as to prevent physical harm to another unless a special relation exists between actor and third person, or between actor and the other)." Restatement (Second) of Torts 314A presents the following as a not necessarily exclusive list of special relations: common carrier and passenger, innkeeper and guest, land possessor and the possessor's invitees, and custodian and a person in custody who is deprived of normal opportunities for protection due to the custody. Id.