Crime shouldn’t be something you worry about in your everyday life. Owners of apartment buildings, retail businesses, and other areas have a duty to protect those they invite onto their property. When they lapse in this duty, they put you, your family, and countless others at risk.
If you have been the victim of a crime or violent act on the premises of a commercial establishment, you may be eligible to file a claim against the property owner to pay for your resulting damages. Damages in these cases include your losses that resulted from the crime committed. This can include medical bills, lost wages, and property loss as well as non-economic damages, such as compensation for the pain and suffering you have experienced.
Do not feel like you are alone when trying to recover and pay your bills after your incident. You can work with a negligent security lawyer in Lawrenceville to help you build a strong case seeking all available damages.
Since 1988, Andersen, Tate & Carr has fought for the rights of injury victims in Lawrenceville and throughout northeast Georgia. We work hard for our clients, exploring every available legal option against all potentially at-fault parties. Our cases typically seek a fair settlement offer for full damages from liable parties, but we are willing to take your case to a lawsuit and a jury trial if need be.
You can learn more about your options for pursuing compensation after a crime-related injury when you speak to one of our Lawrenceville negligent security attorneys. You can do so for free during your initial consultation. There’s no obligation to work with us after your free case review, so you have nothing to lose by learning more about your available legal strategies.
Schedule your free case evaluation now when you call (770) 237-9860 or contact us online today.
Determining Who Was at Fault in Your Negligent Security Case
Crime victims may be surprised to learn that they have options for obtaining compensation from property owners after their harrowing incident. Seeking damages in these cases is made possible by premises liability law and the legal theory of negligence.
Premises liability law involves injuries that occurred on the property of a person or company that could have been prevented if the property owner exercised greater care. Crime does not always happen randomly; there are patterns and ways to predict whether it is likely. When and owner fails to secure his property or fails to deter crime, that property may become magnets for violent criminals.
Victims in negligent security cases can pursue a damages claim against property owners or other responsible parties that failed to make the property safe in a reasonable manner.
Common parties that crime victims can pursue compensation from can include:
- Property owners, including both individuals and holding corporations
- Tenants of properties, such as the business that operates in a retail space
- Property management companies
- Security firms
- Contractors who enter the property and can potentially make conditions less safe
As you can see, these cases can get quite complex. In many cases, lawsuits or claims will be filed against multiple parties. Property owners and large companies may also have substantial legal resources at their disposal, meaning victims must have an airtight case if they hope to successfully recover their damages.
Hiring a negligent security lawyer in Lawrenceville can increase the likelihood that your case will meet with success. Your attorney will look to all applicable laws and prior case rulings while also gathering evidence of the at-fault party’s negligence.
How a Negligent Security Lawyer in Lawrenceville Gathers Evidence of Negligence
All negligence cases have four main elements that must be proven:
- Duty of care: The defendant had a duty of care to protect others from harm as a “reasonable person” exercising “ordinary care” would
- Breach in duty: The defendant breached their duty of care, either by committing a dangerous act or failing to act in a way that could have prevented danger
- Causation: The breach in the defendant’s duty of care was the direct cause of the injuries of the plaintiff (victim)
- Real damages: The plaintiff suffered real damages, including either economic losses or non-economic but still quantifiable pain & suffering, loss of quality of life, etc.
Premises liability cases typically require an understanding of a few of these elements in greater detail. First, the role of the person who was injured matters greatly in these cases.
Customers and apartment tenants are considered “invitees,” which demand the highest duty of care from property owners. Those who visit the property but haven’t been explicitly invited or encouraged to visit the property owner are “licensees,” who should be protected from or warned about any obvious dangers. Finally, “trespassers” are still owed a duty of care to not create conditions that could willfully cause harm, such as setting booby traps.
Another issue Lawrenceville negligent security lawyers must contend with is proving that the liable party could have understood that they were creating a danger by either failing to exercise “ordinary care” as a “reasonable person” would. Since some crimes are unpredictable, the defendant can contend that there was no conceivable way to protect the victim.
To counter these defenses, your lawyer can look for a history of past incidents on the property to define a pattern of crime that the property owner should have addressed. Or, if the negligence was related to a careless operating practice, such as hiring security officers without conducting a background check, then your attorney can document the ways the defendant was careless.
Often, negligent security cases rely upon the input of expert witnesses to attest that the conditions on the property were unacceptable or that the security practices were careless.
Types of Property Owner Negligence
There are many examples of property owner negligence in past cases that directly led to the risk of a violent crime, such as:
- Failure to provide adequate security lighting
- Failure to maintain adequate surveillance practices
- Failure to maintain proper fencing or access controls
- Hiring unqualified security personnel
- Hiring contractors without checking their criminal history
- Understaffing security personnel
- Ignoring patterns of past crime
- Incompetent practices, such as allowing contractors to share access codes with others
You Deserve a Fighting Chance to Recover Compensation After a Heinous Crime Has Been Committed Against You
No one deserves to be a crime victim, especially if they are living at or visiting a property that should be kept safe by its owner. You can work with an experienced Lawrenceville negligent security lawyer team to dig up the facts of your case and build a strong claim that documents how incompetence or negligence led to your injury.
Schedule a free consultation today to learn more about your legal rights and the next best steps you can take after your incident. Simply call (770) 237-9860 or contact us online now to schedule your free, no-obligation appointment.