You parked, locked the car, and planned to be back in an hour. Instead, you were confronted in a dim corner of the lot or on an empty level of a garage. Maybe someone demanded your keys or wallet. Maybe shots were fired. However it happened, you are now dealing with injuries, police reports, and a question that keeps coming back: how could a place so many people use every day be so unsafe?
In many cases, the answer is that the people responsible for the lot or garage did not do enough to secure it. When that is true, the law may allow you to hold them financially accountable.
The basic rule
If you were shot, robbed, or assaulted in a parking lot or garage that lacked basic security, the property owner may be liable for your injuries. Basic security usually means things like lighting, cameras, patrols, and some form of access control. Isolated, poorly secured parking areas are common sites of crime that is both foreseeable and preventable.
This kind of claim is called negligent security. It does not ask the owner to pay for the crime itself. It asks whether the owner failed to take reasonable steps against a danger it should have seen coming.
Why parking areas need real security
Parking structures combine several risk factors. They are isolated, often poorly lit, and easy for criminals to enter and escape. The people using them are frequently alone, distracted, and carrying keys, phones, or shopping bags. That mix makes lots and garages frequent sites of robberies, shootings, and assaults.
Owners who control these spaces owe a duty to secure them reasonably. Reasonable does not mean perfect. It means taking sensible precautions that match the risk, especially when the owner knows crime has occurred there before.
Five common security failures
When attacks happen in parking areas, investigations frequently turn up the same problems:
- Lighting that is inadequate or broken on parking levels, ramps, and stairwells
- Surveillance cameras that are missing or not working
- No access control, gates, or attendants to limit who comes and goes
- No security patrols even though the property had a known crime problem
- Broken elevators or stairwell doors that trap people or leave them exposed
Any one of these can contribute to an attack. Together, at a property with a history of crime, they can make a strong case for liability.
Who is responsible for the lot
Responsibility depends on who owned and operated the parking area. In some cases that is a standalone garage operator. In others it is the business the lot serves, such as a mall, hotel, apartment complex, or hospital. A property management company may also be involved. Part of every case is working out exactly who was responsible for security where the attack occurred.
If the lot belonged to a business you were visiting, that business may owe a duty in the parking areas its customers use. An attack in a store, restaurant, or venue's lot can support a claim if security there was inadequate.
What these cases can recover
Attacks in parking areas frequently cause catastrophic gunshot injuries. A claim can seek medical care and lifetime care, lost income, and pain and suffering. When an attack is fatal, the family may pursue a wrongful-death recovery.
The Haggard Law Firm won a $3.9 million verdict for the family of a teenager shot in an apartment parking lot. The firm also holds a $102.7 million verdict, the largest negligent-security verdict in U.S. history. Both figures are gross amounts before fees and costs, and past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
Not only shootings
These claims are not limited to gunfire. Victims of armed robberies, carjackings, beatings, and stabbings in parking areas may have the same type of claim, because the focus is on the security failure rather than the weapon. A purse snatching that ends with a victim knocked to the concrete, or a carjacking where the driver is pulled from the car and injured, can cause lasting harm. If the lot had a known crime problem and the owner did little about it, the analysis is much the same.
Why acting fast matters
Parking garage and lot cameras often record over themselves, and records of earlier crime at the property can be hard to recover later. Lights get fixed and gates get repaired after a serious incident. The sooner a lawyer can secure the evidence, the better the chance of showing what the lot really looked like on the day you were hurt.
Talk to the firm for free
The firm handles parking lot and garage cases on contingency. There is no fee unless it wins. To discuss what happened, call (305) 446-5700 for a free, confidential case review.
Attorney advertising. This post is general information, not legal advice. Contacting the firm does not create an attorney-client relationship.
