What is Negligent Security?

This video features Aaron Allison, an Employment and Labor Law attorney based in Texas.

Attorney Aaron Allison | 888-300-1476 | Free Consult

If you’re injured by a criminal act on commercial property, could the property owner be liable for failing to prevent it? What is negligent security, and when does it apply to injury cases?

Aaron Allison is an attorney at The Law Offices of Aaron Allison in Austin, TX. In this Quick Question, he explains that property owners need to take some basic precautions as appropriate for the situation. This might include proper lighting, surveillance, gates, and locks.

To learn more, contact the attorney directly by calling 888-300-1476 or by submitting a contact form on this page. The consultation is free and confidential, and you owe no out-of-pocket attorney fees.

Negligent security is the failure to provide basic security.

A property owner is responsible for providing basic security to their employees and customers. If a business or property owner fails to do so, they could be liable if an employee or customer is injured on that property as a result.

Negligent security generally occurs when a dangerous situation could have been predicted and prevented by reasonably expected safety measures. Some of the most common types of negligent security occur when a property owner fails to do something as simple as maintaining adequate lighting, or remembering to repair or use the lock on a door or gate.

When threats that could have been reasonably predicted are not adequately protected, negligent security may have occurred.

Sometimes unpredictable things happen completely out of anyone’s control. When these sorts of dangers arise, there might not be any party responsible except for the perpetrator themselves. However, when a business fails to protect their employees and customers against a threat which could have been predicted by another similarly capable business, this constitutes negligence.

Essentially, any failure to maintain adequate security measures to prevent a threat or danger which could be reasonably expected against that company is considered negligent security, and both the property owner and security company, if one is involved, could be liable for any injuries or damages that occur as a result of failing to prevent that threat from occurring.

Failure to provide or maintain the minimum necessary security measures constitutes negligent security.

Even if security measures are in place to prevent whatever dangerous situation occurred, if those measures are not consistently practiced and maintained, that constitutes negligent security. A lock on a door is useless if the door isn’t latched.

Additionally, it is the responsibility of the property owner to ensure that their employees are aware of and consistently upholding the necessary security measures as well. A failure to do so may still result in the property owner being held liable, even if it was a part-time employee who failed to replace a light bulb or lock the door at the end of their shift. This is why it is important for business owners to provide quality safety training to their employees in addition to general on-the-job training.

If a business fails to prevent a threat that could have been reasonably expected and protected against by another similar company, the business or property owner could face serious charges regarding any damages which occur as a result.

To learn more, contact Aaron Allison directly by calling 888-300-1476 or by submitting a contact form on this page. The consultation is free and confidential, and you owe no out-of-pocket attorney fees.

Video Transcript:

Leslie Rhode:
What is negligent security? We asked attorney Aaron Allison in this AskTheLawyers.com Quick Question.

Aaron Allison:
Negligent security generally is the failure to provide basic security in a situation where a reasonable prudent person would expect it to be. If you own a business, and someone walks in with a gun and shoots someone, what could you have done to prevent that?
Do you have to have an armed guard? So now is it going to be that everyone has to run a business, has to have an armed guard to protect against the shooting incident?
No. That would be an undue burden. You look at it from the context of based on the context of where the person was injured, should there have been a minimum of security there to protect them? And usually, you're talking about lighting, locking gates, things of that nature.

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