Security Company Negligence

Many properties do not run their own security. They hire it: a licensed agency that supplies the guards, writes the post orders, and bills by the hour. When an attack happens anyway, most people, and many lawyers, sue only the property. That leaves out a defendant with its own duties, its own failures, and its own insurance policy: the security company itself. This page explains when the guard company is liable and how those cases are built.

The undertaker’s doctrine: promising to protect creates a duty

Florida law is direct about this. A company that undertakes to provide a service that it should recognize as necessary for someone’s protection must perform that service with reasonable care. The Florida Supreme Court confirmed the principle in Clay Electric Cooperative, Inc. v. Johnson, 873 So. 2d 1182 (Fla. 2003), and it fits security work perfectly: a company paid to guard a property has taken on protection as its job, and the people on that property are exactly who the job exists to protect. A guard who was absent from his post, asleep, untrained, or unequipped is not a harmless disappointment. He is a breach of duty.

The contract is the standard of care, written by the defendant

Here is what makes these cases unusually provable: the security contract, the post orders, and the patrol requirements are written documents, drafted by the very companies now being asked whether they met the standard. If the contract promised two roving guards from dusk to dawn and the timekeeping records show one guard who never left the office, the breach is arithmetic. Patrol logs, tour-verification data from checkpoint wands and apps, dispatch records, and training files either match the promises or they do not.

The property owner does not escape by hiring out

Suing the guard company does not release the owner. The owner chose the vendor, set the budget, decided how many hours to buy, and often knew coverage was thin. An owner who bought four hours of unarmed presence for a property with years of violent calls made a security decision, and it remains responsible for the reasonableness of that decision. In practice the owner and the security company each blame the other, and that finger-pointing, done under oath, frequently proves the injured person’s case for them.

Licensing tells its own story

Florida licenses security agencies and their officers under chapter 493, including training requirements and separate licensure for armed work. Whether the company and the individual guards were properly licensed, trained, and equipped for the assignment is discoverable, and gaps become powerful evidence that the protection sold was never real. The hiring file matters too: a company that put a guard with a disqualifying history on a vulnerable post invites a negligent hiring claim of its own.

Deadlines

The claims against the security company and the property owner generally run on Florida’s two-year negligence clock, and the evidence runs faster: tour data gets overwritten, guards scatter to other employers, and contracts get renegotiated. Preservation letters to both the owner and the security vendor should go out immediately.

Why this is my kind of case

A security-failure case is a reconstruction: what the crime looked like as it unfolded, and where a competent guard should have been standing. Reconstructing crime from records is what I did daily as an Assistant Public Defender, and on the civil side I take the corporate representative depositions, of the owner and of the guard company, myself. Two defendants under oath, each explaining why the other failed, is where these cases are won. Learn more about my background.

Common Questions

Can I sue the security company directly?

Often yes. A company that undertakes to guard a property owes reasonable care to the people the service exists to protect, and Florida recognizes claims against contractors whose negligent performance leads to injury. The company’s own contract and post orders define much of what it owed.

What if the guard did nothing wrong but there were too few guards?

Then the question moves up the chain: did the security company staff the post as promised, and did the owner buy a level of security that was reasonable for the property’s known risk? Understaffing is a decision someone made, and decisions have owners.

Does it matter that the guards were unarmed?

It can. The reasonableness of unarmed coverage depends on the property’s crime history and what the assignment actually required, and Florida separately licenses armed security work. A high-risk property protected by a single unarmed guard is a choice a jury is entitled to evaluate.

Will suing two defendants complicate my case?

It usually strengthens it. The owner and the security company each hold records the other lacks, and each has every incentive to prove the other’s failure. Their finger-pointing fills in the story an injured person could never assemble alone.

What records should be preserved?

The security contract and post orders, patrol and tour-verification logs, dispatch and incident reports, guard schedules and timekeeping, training and licensing files, and all video. A preservation letter to both companies, sent immediately, is the single most valuable early step.

Related: Negligent security overview, Foreseeability and prior crime, Parking lot and garage attacks, Wrongful death after an attack, and About Rory Safir.

This page is general information about Florida negligent security law, not legal advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Foreseeability and causation in Florida negligent security claims are governed by case law, including Sanders v. ERP Operating Ltd. Partnership, 157 So. 3d 273 (Fla. 2015), applied with Fla. Stat. 768.81 and 95.11. The duty arises from special relationships recognized in Florida tort law. Every case is different, and past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. The hiring of a lawyer is an important decision that should not be based solely on advertisements.