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Atlanta Negligent Security Attorney

All business and property owners in the state of Georgia are required to keep their property and the area surrounding their property safe. If they fail to do so and a person is injured, they can be held legally responsible for the injuries.

Why You Need a Negligent Security Attorney

If you or a loved one was injured due to another person’s unsafe property, it’s a good idea to contact an experienced premises liability attorney right away. The attorneys at Williams Oinonen LLC have experience handling all types of personal injury cases, including premises liability cases and Atlanta wrongful death cases. There are many intricacies to these types of cases, so having an experienced attorney is crucial. Contact an Atlanta negligent security attorney today for a consultation by filling out our online form or calling (404) 654-0288.

What Is Negligent Security?

In Georgia, it is a requirement that all property owners keep their premises and approaches safe. This means a property owner can be held liable for an injury that occurs on their property if it resulted from foreseeable third-party criminal activity on their property. In some cases, this can even include injuries that take place near their property, even if it isn’t directly on property that they own. These are specific types of premises liability cases.

For example, parking garages, shopping centers, nightclubs, and other areas that people often frequent are required to have proper security measures in place. This may include adequate lighting, appropriately trained security guards, working security systems, and properly functioning locks.

Proving a Negligent Security Case

In order to be successful in a negligent security case, you must prove the following:

  1. There was a legal duty to conform to a standard of care;
  2. The duty was breached;
  3. The breach caused an injury; and
  4. The injury caused damage

Additionally, Georgia law also requires that the criminal act must have been foreseeable. It can be shown that a criminal act was foreseeable in several ways, including:

  • Substantially similar crimes have taken place on or near the premises
  • A volatile situation was created – for example, two people are yelling at each other for a long time, and no one intervenes
  • The premises are located in a high-crime area, and no extra precautions were taken

What Is Premises Liability?

Premises liability is an area of law covering injuries that occur on someone’s property due to negligence. This can include slip and falls, failing to warn the public about dangerous conditions on a property, failing to repair a hazardous condition, negligent security, and more.

Duty of Care in Premises Liability Cases

There are different duties of care depending on whether the person on the property had permission to be on the property.

Invitees

Under Georgia law, a land or property owner owes a duty of care to any person who has been invited or welcomed onto the premises. These types of people are known as invitees. This includes customers at a store, employees, contractors, and anyone else who was expressly or impliedly invited to be on the property. If an invitee suffers an injury because the property or business owner failed to exercise reasonable care, the owner is liable for the injury.

Licensees

In Georgia, a licensee is a person who is not a customer, servant, or trespasser. They are permitted to be on the property but were not expressly invited. An example of a licensee is a salesman who walks onto someone’s property to try to sell them something, or even friends and family who have an open invitation to enter a property.

The owner of the property or premises is only liable for willful or wanton injury in the case of licensees. In the case of a licensee, the property owner has a duty to warn them of any risks or harms if the owner is aware of any dangerous conditions, and the licensee is unlikely to be able to discover it without warning.

A willful or wanton injury is generally considered one that is caused as a result of the owner failing to exercise ordinary care to prevent the injury of someone who is known to be or is reasonably expected to be within the range of the dangerous condition on the property.

Trespassers

A trespasser is a person who enters another person’s property without permission. The landowner has a duty not to prepare pitfalls or mantraps for the trespasser or to injure the trespasser willfully or wantonly. However, if an owner is aware of the trespasser’s presence or should reasonably anticipate the trespassers’ presence, the owner has a duty to exercise ordinary care to ensure the trespasser is not injured.

Recreational Property

In Georgia, there is one major exception in premise liability cases: the Recreational Property Act. According to the Recreational Property Act, the landowner owes no duty of care to keep the premises safe or warn anyone of dangerous conditions if the property is used exclusively for recreational purposes. The two major exceptions to the act stipulate that the owner cannot escape liability if they are guilty of willful or malicious failure to warn of the dangers of a condition, structure, use, or activity, and the owner can be held liable if they charged people a fee to use or enter the property.

Recreational properties that fall under the act can include roadways, rivers, machinery, or equipment. For example, a property where there is a lake or river that people can swim in for free or a rope they can use to jump into the water is considered recreational property and falls under the exception to premises liability lawsuits.

Statute of Limitations

For premises liability cases in Georgia, you generally must file a legal claim within two years of the date of the injury. However, if the victim is a child, the statute of limitations is different. When a child under the age of 18 is injured, the statute of limitations does not begin until two years from the victim’s 18th birthday. If the victim is considered legally incompetent, the statute of limitations will not begin until they regain competency.

Contact an Atlanta Negligent Security Attorney Today

If you or a loved one was injured on someone else’s property due to unsafe conditions or because the property owner failed to take proper security measures, contact Williams Oinonen LLC right away. Even if you were a trespasser, you might still be entitled to compensation. Contacting an experienced negligent security attorney is crucial. Not only are our attorneys experienced, but they are all dedicated to ensuring you receive the justice you deserve. Contact a lawyer today for a consultation by filling out our online form or calling (404) 654-0288.