A guest who was shot eight times in the parking lot of a Roanoke Holiday Inn Express should be allowed to sue the motel for not protecting its customers in a high-crime area, the Virginia Supreme Court has ruled.

Ryan Taboada had filed a $3 million lawsuit against the owners of the Holiday Inn Express after being shot and carjacked in the motel's parking lot on Gainsboro Road Northwest in March 2003.

The case was dismissed last year by Roanoke Circuit Court Judge Clifford Weckstein.

But Friday, the state Supreme Court reversed Weckstein's decision and sent the case back to Roanoke Circuit Court, ruling that Taboada should be allowed to present his evidence before a jury.

The case broke new legal ground on the question of what steps a motel owner must take to protect guests from crimes committed on its property.

According to police reports cited in the lawsuit, the motel's staff or guests had been the target of at least 12 robberies or attempted robberies over a three-year period prior to the shooting.

The lawsuit also claims that police officials warned the business, owned by Danville company Daly Seven, that the property's location posed certain dangers to its customers.

Despite those risks, the Holiday Inn Express decided to terminate its security force sometime before Taboada was shot, and failed to install surveillance cameras outside the motel, limit access to its parking lot and take other steps to ensure its guests' safety, the lawsuit states.

Those claims, Justice Lawrence Koontz wrote in the court's opinion, were enough to warrant sending the case before a jury.

Stan Barnhill, an attorney for Daly Seven, said Monday that he and his client were disappointed with the decision. "I am hopeful my client will authorize me to seek a rehearing," Barnhill said.

The shooting occurred the night of March 27, 2003, while Taboada, of Florida, was checking into the motel with his family.

While Taboada was unloading luggage from his sport utility vehicle, he was approached by an armed man. The man demanded money and then shot Taboada, police said.

As Taboada lay wounded in the parking lot, the assailant hopped into the SUV and sped off -- taking 3-year-old Veronica Taboada with him. The girl, who was strapped in a child-safety seat when the robber wrecked the vehicle, was not injured. The assailant was arrested minutes later.

Derrick Wakie Smith pleaded guilty to attempted capital murder, carjacking, abduction of a juvenile, attempted robbery, two counts of using a firearm in the commission of a felony and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

Taboada -- who was temporarily paralyzed with two collapsed lungs and a shattered vertebra -- has suffered permanent disability, lost income, mental anguish and medical bills, the lawsuit states.