When you are attacked on a property in Brandon, the criminal case against your attacker is only half the story. The civil claim is against the property owner whose security failures made the crime possible, and it turns on foreseeability and the evidence the owner controls. In Brandon, these cases come from the State Road 60 retail and mall district, the parking structures around Brandon Town Center, and the apartment corridors off Causeway and Providence. I represent crime victims against the properties that failed them.
The evidence race starts the night of the attack
Surveillance systems record over themselves, usually within days. The broken gate gets fixed, the lighting gets replaced, the guard schedule gets rewritten. A preservation letter sent early, demanding the video, the incident reports, and the staffing records be kept, is often the difference between a strong case and an argument. Get the police report number, photograph the dark corners and broken locks, and write down witness names while they are findable.
Foreseeability is the whole case
An owner’s duty to protect people from a third party’s crime turns on whether that crime was foreseeable. Police calls-for-service to the address, prior incident reports, and crime in the surrounding blocks establish what the owner knew or should have known, and a documented pattern of violence paired with thin security is where these cases are strongest.
Where the case is heard
A Brandon case is filed in the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit at the George E. Edgecomb Courthouse in downtown Tampa, generally within two years, though the evidence race is far shorter. My years in the criminal courts were spent inside the very records these cases are built from.
See also the Hillsborough County negligent security page.
The book
Hurt on Someone Else’s Property
The evidence race, the notice fight, the owner’s records, and the honest truth that many of these cases have to be filed as lawsuits, in one plain-English book on the days and weeks after a fall. Free to Tampa Bay residents, with the digital edition to read the moment you ask.
Common Questions
Do I have a case if my attacker was never caught?
Possibly. The claim is against the property owner, not the attacker, and it turns on the owner’s failure to guard against foreseeable crime. An arrest is not required.
How is foreseeability proven?
Police calls-for-service to the address, the property’s own incident reports, and crime in the surrounding blocks establish what the owner knew or should have known.
The property says it had security. Does that end it?
No. The question is whether the security was reasonable against the known risk and whether it was actually working. A camera that did not record and a guard post that sat empty are failures wearing the costume of security.
Related reading: negligent security, foreseeability and prior crime, and about Rory Safir.
