Negligent security claims start from an uncomfortable fact: most violent crime on private property is foreseeable. It happens at complexes with a history of it, in garages with broken lights and dead cameras, and at businesses where the security that was promised was never actually there.
When an owner knew about the danger and did nothing meaningful about it, Maryland law can hold the property responsible for what followed. That claim exists whether or not anyone was ever arrested or charged.
What a negligent security claim has to prove
- A relationship to the property. You were a tenant, a guest, a customer or otherwise lawfully there.
- Foreseeability. The owner knew, or should have known, that this kind of crime was a real risk here. Prior incidents on or around the property are the usual proof.
- Inadequate security. What a reasonable owner would have done, measured against what this owner actually did: working locks, lighting, functioning cameras, staffed access, and security that existed in practice rather than in a brochure.
- Causation. Reasonable measures would have made a difference to what happened to you.
The heart of most of these cases is the property's own history. Owners frequently know far more about the risk than they later admit.
Where these claims come from
- Apartment complexes, particularly where broken gates, dead entry systems or unlit stairwells were reported and never fixed
- Parking garages and lots, including shopping centers and transit parking
- Hotels and short-term rentals, where door hardware and key control are the usual failures
- Bars, restaurants and nightclubs, where crowd management and ejections go wrong
- Retail and commercial premises, including late-night businesses
- Student housing and campus-adjacent properties
Baltimore City generates the most of this work, and Montgomery and Anne Arundel counties produce the parking-structure and retail cases. Our offices cover all of it.
The evidence that decides these cases
- The property's incident history, including prior crimes on site and police call records for the address
- Camera footage, which is overwritten within days and often turns out never to have been recording at all
- Maintenance and work-order records for gates, locks, lighting and cameras, which frequently show the problem was reported
- Tenant complaints in writing, which are powerful evidence of notice
- The security contract, where guards were promised, and the actual staffing records
- The police report for your incident, if one exists
Most of this is in the owner's hands and much of it is on a deletion cycle, which is why these claims should not sit.
If the attack was sexual
Where the incident was a sexual assault, the claim against the property can proceed alongside, or instead of, anything involving the person who attacked you, and it does not require a criminal charge or conviction. Those conversations are confidential and we do not publish clients' stories or name individuals.
Our sexual abuse team handles that side, including assaults at hotels, in rideshare vehicles and on premises. You can ask for them directly when you call.
How long you have
Maryland generally allows three years from the date of injury for this kind of claim, with different rules where the injured person was a child and short notice periods where the property belongs to a government body, such as public housing or a transit garage.
The evidence deadline is far shorter than the legal one. Footage and call records are the case, and both age out quickly.
