Parking lots fights and assaults after big league sporting events, always involving alcohol, are not uncommon. While the parties involved in the incident often face legal liability, the companies managing the parking lots generally do not. Take Stokes v. Forty-Niners Stadium Management Co. for example.

Fight in Levi’s Stadium Parking Lot

On October 7, 2018, while leaving a San Francisco Forty Niners football game, Mark Stokes kicked an empty glass bottle that struck David Gonzales’s Cadillac SUV. Stokes kept walking towards the car and Gonzales punched him in the face; Stokes fell back to the pavement, he immediately got up when Gonzales again punched him in the face and struck his head on the pavement. Stokes sustained traumatic brain injury and he died three years later. The videotape evidence showed that the incident took only nine seconds.

Gonzales was charged with a felony, plead no contest and was sentenced to one year in county jail.

The Stokes family sued the management company in charge of the parking lot security claiming negligence in failing to prevent the assault and failing to provide reasonably adequate security. The parking management companies prevailed at trail, the Stokes family appealed.

Evidence At the Trial

Trial evidence documented there were at least 923 security personnel working the 49ers game that day, attended by 53,582 fans. Both Stokes and Gonzales had consumed beer before and during the game and Gonzales was drinking a beer when he punched Stokes.

Sixth Appellate Court of Appeal Ruling

The Court wrote about the Stokes family claim: “This is in effect a claim that the security firm should have provided additional security personnel…the bare claim that more security personnel could have prevented a criminal attack shows only “abstract negligence”… when, in such a case, an injury occurs with such rapidity that supervisorial personnel could have no opportunity to discover and respond to the situation, then claims of abstract negligence will not support recovery. We must reject appellant’s suggestion that the mere fact the fight occurred is sufficient, in itself, to establish actionable negligence.”

The two parking lot management/security companies prevail.

Go Purdy. Go Niners.

Jim Porter is a retired attorney from Porter Simon, formerly licensed in California and Nevada. Porter Simon has offices in Truckee California and Reno, Nevada. These are Jim’s personal opinions. He may be reached at jameslporterjr@gmail.com. Like Porter Simon on Facebook. ©2025