Dallas Negligent Security Accident Attorney

The owner of any property has a legal duty to ensure the safety of all persons lawfully on that property through enacting reasonable and adequate security measures such as providing proper lighting, installing locks, hiring guards and security personnel, and installing surveillance cameras, among other things.

Although these security measures cannot prevent 100 percent of all accidents and incidents on the property, they can prevent predictable criminal activity such as robbery, assault, battery, sexual assault and rape, homicide, and other types of violence that may cause injury to unsuspecting visitors and customers on the property.

Property owner’s liability in negligent security accidents

“As we have mentioned earlier, a property owner cannot be held liable for all types of accidents and incidents on his or her property, only those that could have been prevented by means of adequate security,” explains our Dallas negligent security accident attorney at the Law Office of Dorothy Hyde.

If a visitor sustained injury on a property in a reasonably foreseeable accident or incident and the property owner failed to prevent due to negligent security, the injured party may be entitled to compensation through the legal theory of premises liability.

Premises liability law and inadequate security measures

In other words, if negligent or inadequate security is to blame for your injury on someone else’s property, you may have a right to file a premises liability lawsuit against the owner or occupier of the property for his or her failure to ensure your safety.

“By providing negligent security on the property, the owner or occupier of that property is exposing licensees, invitees, and even trespassers to a risk of bodily injury or death in a crime or any other incident,” says our experienced inadequate security attorney in Dallas.

Types of property where negligent security can cause injury

Negligent or inadequate security can become the primary or secondary cause of a visitor’s injury on many types of property, including but not limited to:

• Hotel
• Bank and other financial institution
• Government building
• Post office
• Shopping mall
• Grocery store
• Department store
• Movie theater
• Bar, nightclub, restaurant or any other entertainment establishment
• Retail store
• Apartment building
• Parking lot
• School and college
• At an ATM machine outdoors or indoors
• Hospitals, nursing homes, and other medical facilities
• Gas station and
• Gym and other sports venues

How to prove that security was negligent?

Proving that security measures on a property were negligent or inadequate and that this factor became the direct or proximate cause of your injury or your loved one’s death on the property may not be as it easy as it seems.

In order to establish that security measures were negligent, your premises liability lawyer will have to collect the following types of evidence:

• Inadequate security: faulty or non-existent locks, insufficient number of guards, lack of surveillance cameras, poor lighting, lack of fences, etc.
• History of complaints, incidents or crimes. If a property owner has received complaints about negligent security measures in the past, and failed to address them, which ultimately resulted in injury to a visitor, that property owner will be held liable. The same can be said if there were similar incidents or crimes on that property in the past, and the owner or occupier of the property did little to nothing to prevent these incidents and crimes from reoccurring by means of adequate security.
• Maintenance. Many incidents and crimes on a property can be caused by the owner’s failure to properly maintain his or her security measures such as cameras and lighting as well as external barriers such as fences, doors, and windows. If these elements of security were faulty, broken, or defective at the time of your incident, and the owner was either aware or should have been aware of the problem but failed to fix it in a timely manner, you may be entitled to financial compensation.

As you can see, proving that security measures on a property were negligent is no easy task, which is why we encourage you to speak to our premises liability lawyers at the Law Office of Dorothy Hyde to discuss your case. Call our offices at (214) 883-1700 for a free case evaluation.