$610KInadequate security led to assault in parking garage

Our client was attacked and robbed on the fourth level of a parking structure attached to the office building where she worked. She suffered a fractured orbital floor and an injury that required surgical repair, and she has not returned to work in that building.

The garage operator’s position was that a criminal act by a third party was not something it could be held responsible for.

Foreseeability was the whole case. We pulled three years of calls for service at that address and found eleven prior incidents, including two robberies on the same level within fourteen months.

A security consultant then established that of sixteen cameras, nine had not recorded in over a year; that the stairwell access control had been propped open as routine practice; and that lighting on the upper levels measured below a third of the applicable standard. The operator’s own risk assessment had recommended a roving patrol two years earlier. It was never funded.

The operator and the building owner settled for $610K after the call history and the unfunded risk assessment were produced in discovery.

She has since changed employers. The settlement covered her surgical care, her ongoing treatment for post-traumatic stress, and the income lost during the months she was unable to work.