Orlando Negligent
Security Attorneys

Negligent security is a category of premises liability claim that arises when someone is assaulted, robbed, or otherwise harmed by a third party’s criminal act on property the owner controls, and the owner failed to take reasonable security measures despite knowing, or having reason to know, that the property presented a foreseeable risk of that kind of crime. The person who committed the crime bears the primary responsibility, but that does not mean the property owner bears none.

King Law represents people injured in negligent security incidents in Orlando and throughout Central Florida, including at apartment complexes, hotels, parking garages, retail stores, bars and nightclubs, and gas stations.

Foreseeability Is the Center of Every Case

Florida law does not make a property owner an insurer against all crime. Liability requires showing that the specific type of harm was reasonably foreseeable to the owner, based on what they knew or should have known before the incident occurred. This is proven primarily through the property’s own history: prior similar crimes on the premises, police reports and calls for service at that address, other tenants’ or guests’ complaints about safety, and, in some cases, crime statistics for the immediate area that a reasonably prudent owner would have been aware of.

A single unrelated incident years earlier does not usually establish foreseeability for a different kind of crime. What tends to matter is a pattern: repeated trespassing, prior assaults or robberies of a similar nature, known gang or drug activity on the property, or specific complaints about a broken gate, dead lighting or an unmonitored common area that had been reported and ignored.

This is why the first months of a negligent security case are largely an investigation into the property’s history, not just the incident itself. Records establishing what the owner knew, and when, often exist only in police archives and property management files that are not preserved indefinitely.

What Counts as Inadequate Security

What reasonable security looks like depends entirely on the type of property and the risks specific to it, and Florida does not impose a single fixed checklist. Common allegations include broken or absent exterior lighting in parking areas and walkways, non-functioning security cameras or gates, inadequate or poorly trained security personnel, failure to control access to a building or complex that had a history of unauthorised entry, failure to repair a known broken lock or gate after it was reported, and understaffing at a venue with a documented history of violence.

Expert testimony from security consultants is frequently used to establish the applicable standard of care for a given type of property, and to explain how specific, identifiable failures — as opposed to security in the abstract — created or enabled the opportunity for the crime that occurred.

Special Rules for Apartments and Multifamily Housing

Fla. Stat. § 768.0706 creates a specific framework for multifamily residential properties. It establishes a presumption against liability for a property owner who has implemented and maintained a specified set of security measures, including adequate lighting in defined common areas, functioning locks on doors and windows, and other listed measures. Owners who satisfy this safe harbor benefit from a presumption that they exercised reasonable care, which can be significant in litigation involving an apartment complex or similar property.

This makes documenting the actual, physical condition of the property at the time of the incident especially important in these cases — not just what the lease or a policy manual said should have existed, but what condition the lighting, locks, gates and cameras were genuinely in when the crime occurred.

Comparative Negligence After the 2023 Reform

Florida changed its negligence framework significantly in 2023. Fla. Stat. § 768.81 now applies a modified comparative negligence standard with a 51 percent bar: if you are found more than 50 percent at fault for your own injury, you are barred entirely from recovery, rather than merely having your damages reduced. If you are found 50 percent or less at fault, your damages are reduced by your percentage of fault but you may still recover.

In negligent security cases, defendants frequently argue that the injured person’s own conduct — being present in a known high-risk area, ignoring posted warnings, or other circumstances — contributed to the outcome. How that argument plays out under the current 51 percent framework is now a central strategic question in litigating these cases, and it makes the surrounding facts of the incident, not just the property’s security failures, directly relevant to what can be recovered.

Evidence That Disappears Quickly

Security camera footage is frequently overwritten on short retention cycles, sometimes within days. Incident reports generated by on-site security or property management are often filed internally and not automatically preserved for litigation. Police reports and 911 call records exist but take time to obtain and can be incomplete regarding the property’s prior history unless specifically requested. Sending a formal spoliation or preservation letter to the property owner and any security contractor promptly after an incident is one of the highest-value early steps in these cases.

On the medical side, the same principles that apply to any injury claim apply here: seek treatment promptly, follow up consistently, and keep every record. Photograph the scene if it is safe to do so, including the specific condition — lighting, gates, cameras — that you believe contributed to what happened, since property owners sometimes make repairs quickly after an incident.