Nobody defending a negligent security case stands up and admits the lighting was inadequate.
They argue about something else entirely. For example, they’ll say the crime wasn’t foreseeable or that the criminal—not the property owner—was the cause. They’ll point the finger and say you shouldn’t have been standing there or that the security camera and the lock on the door were sufficient safeguards.
Each of their arguments will attack a different piece of your case. Knocking out a single piece ends the whole thing. This is why premises security litigation so often gets decided on paper months before a jury is seated.
An inadequate security lawsuit in Seattle turns less on what happened to you than on those four arguments.
Here is what each one sounds like and what answers it.
What You Have to Prove Before Anyone Argues
Property owner liability for crime isn’t automatic. Knowing what you have to carry makes the defense’s moves easy to read.
You must establish four things:
- The owner owed you a duty
- The owner breached that duty
- The breach caused your injuries
- You have damages
Under Washington premises liability laws, that duty exists when you’re an invitee. In other words, you’re owed a duty of care if you were a customer, a tenant, or a guest on the property and when third-party criminal conduct was foreseeable.
Every defense the other side tries will target one of those four points. Watch which one they pick.
It will tell you where they think your case is weak.
“Nobody Could Have Seen This Coming”
The other side’s first and best defense is that the crime was unforeseeable. Because if it was, no duty could have existed in the first place.
The argument often shows up in a specific form. They’ll say there have been no prior similar incidents on this property, so the owner had no reason to anticipate violence. Washington courts read “similar” strictly enough that this tactic works more often than it should.
How do you beat it? With records.
For example, there could be police calls for service to the address, or incident reports from the property, or prior tenant complaints, or prior lawsuits. The property’s own crime data is searchable, since Seattle’s public crime dashboard lets anyone map reported offenses by location and time period.
Crime statistics for legal claims work best when they show patterns rather than volume.
Seven armed robberies in a parking garage over two years is a story. Six assorted incidents across a large property over a decade is noise, and the defense will say so. Foreseeability of criminal acts can also come from the nature of the business itself. Some places historically are magnets for criminal activity, including late-night bars, cash-only businesses, or an apartment complex with broken gates.
Prior incidents are not the only window to look through.
“The Criminal Did It, Not Us”
The next defense is an intervening cause. The defense will argue that a third party’s deliberate crime broke the chain between the owner’s negligence and your injuries. Someone else chose to hurt you, so why should the landlord be held responsible?
Put that way, it sounds unanswerable. Don’t be discouraged.
Washington asks three questions of this defense:
- Was the intervening act reasonably foreseeable?
- Did the incident produce a different kind of harm than the negligence risked?
- Did the crime happen independently of the situation the property owner created?
When the exact risk that made the security inadequate is the risk that allowed the incident to happen, the criminal act doesn’t supersede anything. Put plainly: A landlord who ignores a broken security gate for eight months cannot act surprised when someone walks through it.
The defense wants the crime treated as a bolt from the blue. Your job is to show it was the predictable result of a door that didn’t lock.
“You Put Yourself There”
When the defense’s first two arguments fail, they try to put the blame on you. This tactic tries to use comparative negligence to argue that you ignored warnings or entered somewhere you shouldn’t have. In other words, your own negligence contributed to what happened.
Washington uses pure comparative fault.
Under RCW 4.22.005, your own fault reduces your damages by the exact percentage of fault assigned to you. For example, if you’re found 60 percent at fault for an assault you suffered on that property, your compensation will be reduced by exactly 60 percent.
Fortunately, pure comparative negligence never bars recovery, even if you’re 90 percent at fault. Even if you’re only entitled to 10 percent of recovery, it’s better than nothing.
Still, if the defense can’t eliminate your compensation, it can still try to shave off as much as possible. They’ll shave hard. Expect questions about why you were there at that hour, what you’d been drinking, or whether you even noticed the poor lighting.
Answer with context and not with defensiveness. A tenant walking to her own apartment at 11 p.m. is not assuming a risk. She’s just going home.
“We Had Security”
The last defense concedes that a danger existed, but claims their response was adequate.
“There was a security camera.” “We locked that door.” “We always have a guard patrolling on weekends.” This is where security expert testimony comes in handy. Consultants and criminologists testify to what a reasonable owner in that location, running that kind of property, should have installed.
Should there have been more than camera coverage and retention of footage? What should the lighting levels have been? What kind of access control did the property have in place? If there was a security guard, what was the patrol frequency?
Some kind of prevention existed. Whether it did anything to protect you is a separate question.
Boland Law Fights These Arguments for a Living
Every negligent security case eventually becomes an argument about what the owner knew, what they did, and how much of this they’d like to pin on you. The defense has run these plays before.
The Law Offices of Justin R. Boland handles these claims across Washington, and our practice includes a $10 million negligent security recovery. Our attorneys move quickly on records because evidence that defeats these defenses, such as footage, call logs, and maintenance files, have a short and unforgiving shelf life.
If a property owner’s insurer is already telling you the crime was unforeseeable, speak with an attorney before you accept that as the final word.
They’ve had their answer ready since before you called.
