Can a Defendant in a Negligent Security Case Blame the Criminal?

If someone is a victim of a criminal attack on someone else’s property that causes injury, it may seem like the criminal is the one to blame–and certainly, the criminal bears some responsibility. But not all the responsibility. That’s because in some cases, the property owner where the criminal attack happened, may have failed to protect others from the foreseeable criminal attack. .

Negligent Security Claims

A property owner has to take reasonable precautions to protect its customers from criminal attacks that are foreseeable. Reasonable precautions may include providing adequate lighting, or human security, or surveillance–things that tend to discourage or prevent criminals from targeting innocent people.

When they don’t do this, a victim of a criminal attack can sue the property owner for injuries, in what is known as a negligent security claim.

Blaming the Criminal

One of the things that a property owner will say when being sued for negligent security, is that the victim’s injury wasn’t caused by the property owner, but rather, it was caused by the criminal–that is, that the criminal was the independent actor, and that a jury should be able to apportion liability to the criminal actor, directly, and not to the property owner for the negligent security measures.

Defendants love this approach, because most jurors, given the chance, would, of course, blame the criminal–no criminal, no attack, the logic (to the Defendant) goes.

No, The Defendant Cannot do This

But the law doesn’t allow them to do this. That’s because the criminal is acting intentionally, and the criminal injured you through an independent, intentional act.

Contrast that to the property owner, who is not liable for the attack directly, but is liable for failing to take preventative measures that would have stopped, discouraged, or lowered the likelihood of a criminal attack.

The property owner’s liability is based on foreseeability–was a criminal act foreseeable on the property, enough so that security measures were warranted, and they were not taken? This question has nothing to do with the criminal him or herself, or any intentional act taken by that criminal.

The Chain of Causation

The criminal’s actions, while heinous, and although punishable in our criminal court system, doesn’t break the chain of causation or relieve a defendant from liability or failing to provide adequate security–if it did, then there would be no such thing as negligent security, as every criminal act would break the chain of causation, absolving defendants of liability.

There literally would be no incentive for a property owner to keep his property and the people on it safe from foreseeable criminal activity.

An injured victim does have to show that the poor or inadequate security measures, caused or allowed the criminal act to happen–that is, that the criminal act was made easier or was enabled, by the lack of adequate security.

Call our Boston personal injury lawyers at The Law Office of Joseph Linnehan, Jr. today at 617-275-4200 if you were injured by a criminal attack on someone else’s property.

Source:

victimbar.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/leighton.pdf