Category: Premises Liability

What Is Negligent Security?

Business owners have an obligation to keep their customers and visitors safe. This duty extends to keeping the floors clean and dry, so you do not trip and fall and maintaining walkways and guardrails.

What many people do not realize, however, is that the duty to keep customers and visitors safe can also extend to keeping you safe against the actions of other people. That means that if you are robbed, assaulted, or otherwise harmed on someone else’s property, you may have a claim for negligent security against the property owner.

Duty to Provide Security

A property owner who invites guests onto his or her property has a responsibility to provide guests with basic security. This includes simple preventative measures to prevent crime. While not all crime can ever be completely prevented, business owners are obligated to make an effort to deter crime. Common items associated with preventing crime include:

• Installing lights in parking lots or other open locations
• Using security cameras
• Silent alarm access for employees
• A sign that indicates limited amounts of cash in the register
• Limiting access with key cards or guards

The duty to provide sufficient security is often associated with the knowledge that similar incidents have previously occurred, or a business is located in a higher crime area. In those cases, the business owners may be required to take extra steps to increase security because of the relative amount of crime in the geographical location.

Proving Negligent Security

A successful negligent security case obviously involves proving negligence. The standard for negligence is that the person or entity at fault did not act reasonably in a particular situation.

The business must take reasonable measures to protect its visitors or guests. In areas that have higher crime rates, having increased protections are reasonable. In other regions, basic protections may be enough.

In some cases, however, the property owner takes no action to keep their property safe. This is particularly true for some apartment complexes. These cases are especially egregious and often result in successful negligent security claims.

Every successful negligent security claim must prove the following four items:

1. The defendant property owner has a duty to ensure the safety of guests or visitors. This requirement is generally easy to meet because this is true of virtually every property owner. In some situations, a property owner will hire this type of service out; however, that usually does not affect the fact that it is still their duty.
2. The second thing that you must show is that the obligation to provide security was somehow breached. It could be that a vital aspect of the security was missing or that something or someone was not doing a job properly.
3. The breach of the duty ultimately must have caused your injuries or damages. This is typically proven by showing that the failure to act reasonably created an environment where the criminal assailant felt comfortable committing a crime.
4. You must have suffered actual injuries. You must show that you were physically or mentally injured because of the failure to provide proper security measures.

In Georgia, juries may apportion a percentage of fault to the criminal.  This means that a jury could find the property owners 50% at fault and the criminal 50% at fault.  This normally means that you will recover 50% of your total damages because most criminals do not have the financial resources to satisfy a substantial judgment.

Negligent security claims are far more common than most people realize. If you feel that you may have a claim after an assault, robbery, or other third-party action, contact Williams Elleby Howard & Easter at 833-LEGALGA today to set up an appointment.

There are millions of slip and fall accidents each year. Many of these incidents involve customers or clients falling while in a commercial business. For these cases, an important legal question arises: who is responsible for any resulting personal injury, the customer or the business?

The answer is—it depends. Businesses have a duty to keep their premises safe, but this doesn’t mean all instances of slipping and falling are the businesses fault. Under Georgia’s premises liability law, certain requirements must be met for slip and fall claims to be viable against businesses.

Georgia Premises Liability Law

Customers or clients of a business are classified as “invitees” under Georgia law. This means that, because the landowner has invited them to come onto the property, the business has an affirmative duty to ensure that its property is safe for its customers.

Store owners thus have a duty to protect their customers from foreseeable harm by taking reasonable steps to clean up any hazards in their store. Typical hazards include spilled drinks or food, knocked over merchandise, uneven surfaces, or damaged handrails or flooring. When a person slips and falls in a store due to hazardous conditions, they can bring a claim against the store owner. To win premises liability cases, a plaintiff must prove the following elements:

• A hazard posing an unreasonable risk of injury existed;
• The store had actual or constructive knowledge of the hazard;
• The store failed to take reasonable steps to either eliminate the hazard or warn people of the danger, and
• The hazardous condition caused the victim’s harm.

The “Hazardous” Condition Requirement

Merely proving that some condition in the store caused the injury isn’t enough; a plaintiff must show that that condition presented an “unreasonable risk of injury.” Gibson v. Symbion, Inc., 277 Ga. App. 721 (2006).

Proving Knowledge of the Risk

Actual knowledge of a hazard exists if a store created the hazard itself or was notified of the specific hazard in question. Proving actual knowledge is usually straightforward, but even if actual knowledge can’t be proven, it doesn’t mean that a slip and fall victim has no case. This element can also be established by proving that the store owner had constructive knowledge.

Constructive knowledge exists if a store should have been aware of a risk, even if it didn’t actually know about it. Constructive knowledge is proven by circumstantial evidence, such as how long a hazard had been present before the injury took place, what the store’s inspection procedures were prior to the accident, and how frequently the particular hazard occurs.

Proving that the Business Didn’t Exercise Reasonable Care

A plaintiff must also prove that the store didn’t take reasonable steps to prevent the harm. Reasonable care could include eliminating the hazard, or sufficiently warning customers about it.

Defenses to a Slip and Fall Claim

Even if all of the above elements are met, a plaintiff could still lose a slip and fall claim. If a plaintiff was fully aware of the risk before walking into or over the hazard, they may not be able to gain compensation from the store because they will have assumed the risk of harm. Similarly, if a plaintiff was contributorily negligent in causing their own harm, damages are more difficult to recover.

Contact Attorney Joel Williams if You Have Suffered a Slip and Fall Accident

If you have been injured in a slip and fall accident inside of a business’ premises, it is important to have an experienced premises liability lawyer investigate your potential case. If you would like more information about this issue or would like to schedule a free consultation, please call us at 833-LEGALGA.

A case involving the negligent security of an apartment complex in Florida has finally come to a conclusion after over a decade of winding through that state’s courts. The estates of those killed in the events leading up to the case are expected to receive a significant recovery in the wrongful death victory.

Apartment Complex Fails to Protect Residents

The case stemmed from a classic example of lax security at an apartment complex.

20-year-old Clara Sanders and her 17-year-old brother Chauncey Sanders moved into the gated apartment complex Gatehouse on the Green in late 2004. The complex was surrounded by a water-filled moat and a wall to protect residents inside. Inside the gated community, the complex maintained the lighting, locks, and peepholes of the apartments, as well as the apartments’ alarm systems.

Nearly a year after moving in, on September 7, 2005, the siblings were shot to death by an unknown assailant, who subsequently robbed their apartment. The gate that was supposed to protect the complex – and which the complex was expected to maintain – had been broken for around two months before the murders, allowing anyone to enter the area. Additionally, contrary to the complex’s written policy, residents were not kept informed of a rash of robberies and break-ins that had occurred over the previous three years inside the complex.

Lawsuit Ends With Negligent Security Win

Following the deaths of the Sanders siblings, the representatives of their estates filed wrongful death lawsuits against the complex, claiming that it was the complex that was responsible for their murders due to its negligent security.

Specifically, the lawsuit claimed that the complex failed to maintain the front gate, did not have adequate security to protect residents, did not prevent dangerous people from gaining access to the complex, and failed to adequately warn residents of the criminal acts that had been occurring, preventing residents from taking their own initiatives to keep themselves safe.

The negligent security case went to trial, where the jury awarded $1.8 million award to the Sanders siblings. The Florida appellate court, however, struck the jury award after considering the case, but the Sanders siblings took it to the Florida Supreme Court, which overturned the intermediate appellate court, reinstated the jury verdict, and sent the case back down to the appeals court. After a few more hearings to decide if it should reconsider the case, the appeals court finally issued an order to bring the case to a close.

Negligent Security Attorney in Cobb County

The case presented a classic negligent security situation, where an apartment complex assured its residents that it would do all that it could to prevent dangerous conduct, and then promptly forgot about its promises, leading to someone getting killed. Unfortunately, these kinds of situations happen all the time in Georgia, with countless people suffering as a result.

If you have been let down by your landlord’s promises to keep your apartment secure, contact the premises liability attorney at Williams Elleby Howard & Easter to get the legal representation that you need.

A 60-year-old woman who slipped and fell while shopping in a Dollar General Store in Alabama was recently awarded a $1.725 million verdict after a trial. Unfortunately, she still remains severely injured from her fall, and has not achieved the full recovery that she was hoping for.

Senior Citizen Slips and Falls in Dollar Store

The incident occurred on July 9, 2012, in the Dollar General Store in Mobile, Alabama. Deborah Revette, then 60, was casually shopping in the store when she slipped and fell in a clear puddle of liquid laundry detergent on the floor of the chemical cleaners aisle. Her fall was a terrible one – she severely broke her leg and fractured her shoulder. Over the course of the next few years, she underwent eight surgeries and no fewer than 395 doctor’s visits. All told, she spent over $470,000 in medical bills. However, despite the medical attention and effort, Ms. Revette remained permanently disabled from her injuries.

Poor Safety Inspections to Blame

Over the course of the trial, it came to light that Dollar General Stores, despite being open for 14 hours every day, only require employees to spend 10 minutes conducting safety inspections. These inspections include looking for and cleaning up dangerous conditions in the aisles, like fallen merchandise that can trip people, liquid spills that can make people slip or slide and fall, like Ms. Revette.

Preventing these conditions from happening should be a priority for stores that are open to the public, and which create business by inviting people inside to buy things. No shopper should have to worry about hazards on the floor while looking where marketers want them to look – at the shelves.

Premises Liability Law Protects Shoppers

This is why premises liability law exists. By allowing injured people to sue the stores where they slipped and fell, and by holding those stores accountable for not taking necessary precautions to keep their patrons safe, premises liability lawsuits pressure businesses to keeping their patrons safe.

Dollar General, by choosing not to require its employees to keep the store safe from these hazards – therefore allowing them to hire fewer workers and save money – put its patrons into harm’s way. Unfortunately for Ms. Revette, that choice led to her fall in the store in Mobile, Alabama, which resulted in her severe injuries.

Georgia Personal Injury Attorney

If you fall and get hurt while in someone else’s store, it is often the case that the store’s policies or layout had something to do with the incident. Whether the workers failed to clean something up in an appropriate amount of time, or whether the design of the store contributed to the injury, you should be compensated for what was not your fault.

That is where Williams Elleby Howard & Easter comes into play.  Cobb County attorney Joel Williams understands all of the ways that businesses can contribute to an unfortunate accident in their store. Contact Joel at 833-LEGALGA if you are interested in your legal options and want  to talk to an attorney.

A trip to the playground can be the highlight of a child’s day.  Enjoying the slides, jungle gyms, swings and sandboxes are all things that we, even as adults, look back on with joy and nostalgia.  Watching our own children enjoy these same things is one of the little things in life that we all love. And with newer materials being used for playgrounds across the United States, playscapes are getting larger and larger, and include more and more features that adults look at with envy.

Unfortunately, engineers often focus more on shock and awe and sacrifice critical safety factors that are essential for playground equipment.

Town Spends Millions Upgrading Playground

In Australia, the local Salisbury Council decided to spend an exorbitant amount of money to upgrade its local playground in nearby St. Kilda. They voted to spend $3.5 million to make it “the best playground in the state of South Australia.” Out of this $3.5 million, $600,000 was allocated to building a pair of impressive slides, made out of metal, that brought riders from the upper levels of the playground’s building to the ground below. One of them included a descent of 51 degrees.

Serious Injuries Cause Playground to Shut Down Its Slides

Soon after opening late last year, the Salisbury Council shut down the slides on the playground after numerous reports of serious injuries on them.

Riders regularly experienced serious burns from the metal slides, as a result of the heat from the surface of the slide, warmed by the sun, and the friction from the speeds attained on the steep descent. Even worse, numerous riders, including children, said that they broke bones both during the slide down, when their legs or arms caught on protruding parts of the slide, or when they were ejected from the end of the slide and hit the bottom platform.

Premises Liability Laws Should Prevent This From Happening

When someone – even the state government – allows people to use their property for their enjoyment, they are supposed to take reasonable care to ensure that everyone remains safe. This includes fixing any dangerous conditions on the property, or warning people of dangerous conditions that result in injury.

Dangerous slides on a playground are a prime example of the sort of condition that premises liability is aimed at preventing.

Premises Liability Attorneys at Williams Elleby Howard & Easter

Going onto someone else’s property – especially when it is held open for the public’s use should not be a dangerous endeavor.  You should be able to rest assured that your children will not be injured while you are there.

Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Luckily, Lawyer Joel Williams can help you understand your legal options if your child is hurt.  Call today at 833-LEGALGA.