The person who attacked you committed the crime. The property owner who knew the gate had been broken for six months made it easy. California law reaches both. The Vertanous Firm has recovered more than $60 Million for injured Californians, including a $6.8 Million settlement on theories of negligent security and premises liability, and these cases are built on the paper trail an owner leaves behind long before the assault.
The Short Answer
People assume that when a crime causes the injury, the case ends with the criminal. It does not. A negligent security case asks a separate question about a separate defendant: did the owner of this property know it was dangerous, and did the owner do anything about it? This page is part of our complete guide: Pasadena premises liability lawyer.
California starts from a broad rule. Civil Code section 1714(a) makes every person responsible for injuries caused by their want of ordinary care in the management of their property. Owners and businesses that invite the public in, or that rent homes to families, owe reasonable care to the people who come there. When the danger on a property is other people, reasonable care means security.
So the assailant is liable for the assault, and the owner is liable for the conditions. That distinction matters practically, because the assailant is frequently unidentified, uninsured, or without assets. The property, on the other hand, carries insurance, has records, and made deliberate choices about lighting, locks, cameras, and staffing. Those choices are the case.
Foreseeability
Negligent security cases turn on foreseeability. An owner is not an insurer against every crime that could occur anywhere. But an owner who knows the property has a violence problem, and treats the problem as a budget line rather than a danger, has made a choice a jury is allowed to price.
Foreseeability is proven with history and circumstances:
The stronger that history, the more the law expects. A property with two armed robberies in the parking lot in eighteen months is not entitled to the security posture of a quiet suburban office park, and the owner cannot claim surprise about something its own incident log predicted.
The Failures
Once foreseeability is established, the case asks what reasonable care required and what the owner actually did. The failures repeat from property to property:
Example: A tenant is attacked at 10 p.m. in the subterranean garage of her apartment building. The vehicle gate has been broken open for months, three tenants have emailed management about strangers in the garage, the property had two vehicle burglaries and one armed robbery in the prior year, and half the garage light fixtures are dark. Management's work order file shows a gate repair estimate approved and never scheduled.
Conclusion: The risk was foreseeable on the property's own records, the fixes were ordinary and inexpensive, and the landlord knew about both. The landlord's failure to secure the garage is a separate wrong from the attack itself, and the tenant's claim proceeds against the owner and the management company regardless of whether the assailant is ever identified.
The Evidence
These cases are won with documents that exist right now and will not exist in six months. Our first moves are always the same: written preservation demands to the owner, the management company, and the security contractor, followed by public records requests and formal discovery.
Not the clip the owner saved. Continuous footage from every camera covering the location and the approaches, for the hours before and after. Systems overwrite in days or weeks.
Incident reports, security logs, guard tour records, and prior claims. Then police call histories for the address, obtained independently, because owners tend to remember fewer incidents than dispatch does.
Tenant emails, maintenance tickets, repair estimates, and vendor invoices. A gate repair approved and never scheduled is worth more than any expert opinion.
What the owner paid for, what the guard company promised, how many officers were required, and where they were supposed to be at the hour of the attack.
Schedules, time records, lighting maintenance logs, and photometric readings taken at night, promptly, before the fixtures are quietly replaced.
Police reports, witness statements, and any prosecution record, which can carry findings and testimony useful in the civil case.
Example: A patron leaving a bar is beaten in the adjacent lot the business controls. The bar has had multiple closing time fights and police responses over two years, hired a single guard who is stationed inside at the register, and lets the lot lighting stay dark. Nine weeks later the patron's family finally calls a lawyer, and the bar's camera system has overwritten the night.
Conclusion: The case is still provable, but harder and worth less. Police call histories, prior incident reports, and witness accounts can establish foreseeability and the missing measures without footage. What is lost is the clearest proof of how long the assault lasted and whether anyone was watching. Nine weeks cost the family the best evidence they had.
Attacked on someone else's property? The footage is expiring now.
Free Case ReviewThe Defendants
A negligent security case usually has more than one defendant, and finding all of them is part of the work.
The assailant may also be sued, and sometimes should be. But a criminal defendant is rarely a source of recovery, and a case built only against that person usually produces a judgment nobody can collect. The property is where the insurance is, and the insurance is where a family's medical bills and future care actually get paid. These injuries are severe: gunshot and stab wounds, fractures, disfigurement, and head trauma with lasting cognitive effects, which we address on our traumatic brain injury page.
Survivors of Assault
Many negligent security cases are brought by survivors of sexual assault, and those cases are handled differently from the first phone call. The civil case belongs to the survivor. It does not require a criminal conviction, it does not require that the assailant was charged, and it moves at a pace the survivor sets.
This firm recovered a $6.8 Million settlement on theories of negligent security and premises liability for a survivor of sexual assault. What that case shares with every case like it is the pattern: a property whose owner knew what could happen there, and did not spend the money to prevent it.
Privacy is planned from the beginning, and deadlines for these claims work differently from ordinary injury deadlines. We explain both in full, in survivor first language, on our page for civil sexual assault claims in California. If you would rather have that conversation before deciding anything, call and say so. Nothing gets filed because you asked a question. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
The Defenses
Defense themes in these cases are consistent, and each one has an answer built from the property's own records.
Deadlines
For most negligent security claims, the lawsuit deadline is two years from the date of injury under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. If the property is owned by a city, county, transit agency, housing authority, school district, or the state, a written government claim is generally due within six months, and that deadline ends cases that would otherwise be strong.
Claims arising from sexual assault run on their own, often longer, deadlines, and those rules are technical enough that they deserve a real conversation rather than a paragraph on a web page. Our sexual assault civil claims page addresses them, and a phone call addresses them better.
Whatever the deadline, the evidence deadline is shorter. Footage overwrites, gates get repaired the week after an attack, lighting is replaced, guard companies are swapped out, and the tenants who complained move away. The case is built out of what still exists when someone finally demands it in writing.
Tell us what happened. We will handle the rest.
Free Case ReviewIf we don't win, you don't pay.
The consultation is free. The representation is on contingency. If there is no recovery, you owe no attorney fee.
Questions We Hear Every Week
Because the claim is not about the attack. It is about the owner's own conduct. Civil Code section 1714(a) makes everyone responsible for injuries caused by their failure to use ordinary care, and an owner who knows the property is dangerous and does nothing has failed that duty. The assailant is liable for the assault. The owner is liable for the conditions that made it easy.
Mostly history and circumstances. Prior violent incidents on the property, a pattern of break-ins or robberies, police call volume, complaints from tenants or employees, a broken gate reported months earlier, and the nature and hours of the business all bear on it. The more foreseeable and more serious the risk, the more the law expects the owner to do about it.
Often yes. A negligent security claim runs against the property owner, manager, or security contractor, and it does not require that the assailant be identified, arrested, or convicted. It requires proof that the danger was foreseeable, that reasonable security measures were missing, and that the failure allowed the attack to happen.
Yes. Retaliation against a tenant for bringing a claim is illegal, and the claim is handled by the landlord's insurer rather than by the person who collects your rent. Many of our clients continue living on the property while the case proceeds. If you feel unsafe there, tell us at the first call, because safety comes before strategy.
Generally two years from the date of injury under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1, and only six months to present a written claim if a public entity owns the property. Sexual assault claims run on different and often longer deadlines. Security footage and police records disappear far sooner than any of these deadlines, so call early.
Client Reviews
Ani A., Glendalevia Yelp"The guy who hit me had a low max coverage. I don't know what magic Vertanous Firm worked, but I got paid for my damages less than a year out from my accident, and was paid three times more than the policy limit."
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