You Can Seek Compensation When Security Fails To Protect You
- Story Highlights:
Accidents happen, but there are sometimes safeguards to mitigate how serious the damage may be. Seatbelts and airbags, for example, are designed to reduce the amount of harm a car accident victim sustains. Crime, however, is a whole other matter, but even here, measures are put in place to try to prevent serious harm from occurring.
With crimes such as theft, assault, or even rape and murder, safeguards can be put in place to reduce the likelihood of these occurring or even intervening to end such situations once they’ve begun. However, this is only effective if the security measures work. When they fail, there can be legal ramifications from the victims.
Security Can Be Negligent
People go to court for negligence when something injures them due to not operating in a safe, reasonable manner. Property owners, for example, are expected to maintain a safe environment for residents, employees, or visitors. If risks are present in the environment that could cause harm, but the property owners fail to address those risks, they are legally accountable for any injury from ignoring that risk.
This also applies to security measures. Security precautions such as lighting, surveillance cameras, locks or pass key systems, and, of course, guards are all designed to make people safer. If they fail to do this, and a crime occurs despite—or worse yet, because—of these security systems, then that is negligence.
Proving Negligent Security
The key to any successful personal injury lawsuit involving negligence is presenting evidence of the failure. This works in three phases.
Establishing Responsibilities
First, it must be clear what the property owner’s responsibilities are in maintaining a reasonably safe environment. Negligence can only be proven when it is shown that a property owner has strayed from established duties.
The broad legal definition is to maintain a reasonably safe environment, but this varies from one property to another. A mixed martial arts facility, where hand-to-hand combat is normal, would have different safety responsibilities from a residential condominium.
Proving Negligence
The next step is providing evidence that negligence occurred. Depending on the type of negligence, this can take many forms. A crime that happened in a parking lot with a broken light might, for example, need to provide witness testimony that no light was working when the crime occurred. This may be backed up by surveillance footage or even records showing the light was repaired after the crime occurred.
Connecting Negligence To The Crime
The final requirement shows that the injury and crime were a direct result of the negligence. For example, someone is robbed and rendered unconscious, only discovered several hours after the crime, despite the presence of both a surveillance camera network and security guard.
If it can be shown that the surveillance camera footage recorded the crime, showing the unconscious victim in full view, and the security guard claims to have been on shift the entire time, this would be strong proof in court that the security guard was negligent.
If you’ve been the victim of a crime-related injury due to negligence, talk to a negligent security attorney right away.
