St. Petersburg Negligent Security Lawyer

As defined by St. Petersburg regulatory standards, inadequate or negligent security cases center around foreseeability of the danger. A person has a duty to protect patrons from reasonably foreseeable risks, crimes and things of that nature. Usually, if it is a high-crime area or if there are multiple fights at a bar and multiple crimes that occur at a bar, then the owner should assess those needs to protect their patrons.

Negligent security cases assess the reasonable security necessary for any events that may occur under the action or inaction of proper protection. The Saint Petersburg statute of limitations for an inadequate or negligent security case is four years. An individual with concerns regarding inadequate protection should speak with a distinguished premises liability lawyer regarding the facts of their case. A St. Petersburg negligent security lawyer can help you collect the necessary evidence to file and pursue your claim.

Defining Adequate Security

Adequate security in Florida is a reasonable person standard because property owners in Florida have a legal obligation to keep people safe on their land. Negligent security usually will assign fault to the security provider or the owner of the building because it usually arises out of situations when someone is assaulted, mugged, sexually assaulted or in some way harmed on the property because there was not enough security.

When determining the standard of adequate security and if enough security was provided, a St. Petersburg negligent security lawyer uses a reasonable person standard. This standard will put into question the security provided by the owner based on all the knowledge and foreseeability the company had.

It depends on a case-by-case basis. If a person goes to a part of town that is very safe, no crime ever happens there, no break-ins ever, nobody ever gets into fights at this bar, then the person with the property could use less security than in a high-crime area where there is a fight every night at the bar, and it is very dangerous, and people are injured all the time. It is a totality of the circumstances and it is a notice and foreseeability argument as to what adequate security is at each individual bar or club.

Potential Defendants

A St. Petersburg negligent security lawyer can clarify the relevant roles in their clients trial. There are multiple potential defendants in inadequate security cases. The first is the person who commits the crime, either the mugging, the sexual assault or the battery. That potential defendant is the tortfeasor. The owner of the bar or club is a potential defendant because they should have hired more security or should have fixed the lights or the locks et cetera.

There is the actual security provider or security company who did not provide enough staff for the event. They are supposed to be the experts on how much security is needed once the owner of the bar tells them what the event will be. If they did not adequately train the people, the security guards, or staff that they send over for security, then they can also be liable for the injuries that occur from the negligent security or inadequate security.

Proving a Negligent Security Case

The determination of adequate security makes it difficult to go forward on a negligent security case. It can be thrown out if they prove that either the crime was not foreseeable and there was nothing they could have done to prevent it, or that they had enough security in place but the crime still occurred. They need to prove the same elements of negligence, which is duty breached, causation and damages. The only real difference in these types of cases is to prove the foreseeability.

St. Petersburg negligent security lawyers need to prove that the owner of the bar club or premises knew, or should have known, that this attack or crime could have happened on their property, and they knew, or should have known, to warn or protect against this hazard (which is similar to other premises liability cases, but specifically for negligent security) and that they knew, or should have known, that they should have warned or protected against this foreseeable crime. Also that they failed to do that and breached their duty, and that breach caused damages to the injured person.

Role of the Burden of Proof

The plaintiff must prove that this owner had a duty to know if a crime was happening and to have had more security but did not. The fact that they did not have more security caused these damages. If someone drops a bomb on a building, no matter how much security this owner would have had, it would not have made a difference. A person has to actually prove that security being there would have made a difference in the damages that occurred in this case.