Negligent Security Lawyer

Written by Ben Sessions, trial attorney. Last reviewed August 2026.

If you were attacked, shot, robbed, or assaulted at an apartment complex, hotel, parking lot, gas station, or business in Georgia, you may have a claim against the property owner. These are called negligent security cases, and as of April 21, 2025, they are governed by an entirely new set of statutes.

Be direct with yourself about one thing: these claims got substantially harder. Any page telling you otherwise has not been updated since the law changed.

Free consultation. No fee unless we recover for you. Call (470) 225-7710.

Georgia Negligent Security Law Changed in 2025

Before SB 68, negligent security claims proceeded under Georgia’s general premises liability statute, O.C.G.A. § 51-3-1 — the same provision that governs slip-and-fall cases. That is no longer true.

SB 68 created an entirely new Article 5 within Title 51, Chapter 3, at O.C.G.A. §§ 51-3-50 through 51-3-57. These sections define “negligent security” for the first time in Georgia law and now supply the exclusive remedy for most claims where someone is injured on a property by the criminal act of a third person.

One important exception: if the person who hurt you was an employee of the property owner, or was acting under the direction, control, or supervision of the owner, occupier, or security contractor, your claim still proceeds under the older premises liability law rather than the new article.

Timing is critical. The negligent security provisions apply only to claims arising on or after April 21, 2025. If you were injured before that date, the prior law governs your case. This is one of the few parts of SB 68 that is not retroactive, and it means two cases with nearly identical facts can be evaluated under completely different standards depending on the date.

What You Now Have to Prove

Under O.C.G.A. § 51-3-51, an owner or occupier can be liable to an invitee for negligent security only where several conditions are met together: the criminal conduct was foreseeable, the injury was a foreseeable result of that conduct, the conduct was connected to a known condition on the property that created a higher than usual risk, the owner failed to exercise ordinary care to address that condition, and that failure was a proximate cause of the injury.

The foreseeability piece is where most of these cases are now won or lost. In practice it turns on whether the owner had a particularized warning of imminent wrongful conduct, or actual knowledge of prior substantially similar crimes — on the property, or in some circumstances nearby.

What this means practically: a general sense that a neighborhood is unsafe is no longer enough. Proving one of these cases requires building an evidentiary record of what the owner actually knew and when they knew it.

The Evidence That Decides These Cases

Because the standard now turns on the owner’s actual knowledge, negligent security cases are won with documents, and most of those documents are in the owner’s possession:

• Prior incident reports for the property — the single most important category of evidence
• Police call history for the address and the immediate surrounding area
• Surveillance footage, which is frequently overwritten within days if nobody demands preservation
• Security company contracts, patrol logs, and staffing records
• Tenant complaints about lighting, broken gates, broken locks, or loitering
• Work orders showing whether repairs were requested and ignored

This is why calling a lawyer quickly matters more in these cases than in almost any other kind of injury claim. Video loops. Incident reports get purged on retention schedules. A preservation letter sent in week one can be the difference between a provable case and an unprovable one.

Fault Gets Apportioned to the Criminal Now

SB 68 also requires juries to apportion fault to the person who actually committed the crime. That perpetrator is usually unidentified, uninsured, or incarcerated — and every percentage point of fault assigned to them reduces what you recover from the property owner.

Defense lawyers will use this aggressively. Presenting a case that keeps the focus on what the property owner knew and failed to do requires preparation from the outset, not at mediation.

Defenses the Statute Now Provides

SB 68 gave property owners several defenses that did not previously exist in this form. An owner generally is not liable where the injured person was a trespasser, where the injury occurred off the premises, or where the wrongful act happened somewhere the owner had no legal authority to exclude the third person. O.C.G.A. § 51-3-55 also clarifies that property owners are not obligated to police general public order on their property. Security contractors receive similar statutory protection.

Where These Cases Happen in Georgia

We handle negligent security claims involving apartment complexes and gated communities, hotels and motels, parking lots and decks, gas stations and convenience stores, bars and nightclubs, shopping centers, and office buildings.

The recurring facts are familiar to anyone who handles these cases: a gate that has been broken for months, lighting that was never repaired, a security guard position that was cut, or a complex with a documented history of violent crime that never changed anything.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I sue an apartment complex if I was attacked there?

Possibly. Under Georgia’s 2025 law you generally must show the complex had a particularized warning of imminent criminal conduct or actual knowledge of prior substantially similar crimes, that a condition of the property created a higher than usual risk, and that the owner failed to exercise ordinary care. Prior incident reports and police call history for the property are usually the deciding evidence.

Does it matter when the crime happened?

Yes, and significantly. The negligent security provisions of SB 68 apply only to claims arising on or after April 21, 2025. Injuries before that date are evaluated under the prior premises liability law.

What if the person who attacked me was never caught?

You can still bring a claim against the property owner. Georgia law now requires the jury to apportion some fault to the perpetrator, which can reduce your recovery, but an unidentified attacker does not end the case.

How long do I have to file?

Georgia’s personal injury statute of limitations is generally two years from the date of injury. If a government entity owns or operates the property, a much shorter ante litem notice deadline applies — as little as six months. Call a lawyer immediately if any government property may be involved.

What does it cost to hire you?

Nothing up front. We handle these cases on a contingency fee — no fee unless we obtain a recovery for you. The consultation is free.

Talk to a Georgia Negligent Security Lawyer

These cases are harder than they were two years ago, and they are evidence-intensive from day one. If you were hurt by a criminal act on someone else’s property, the sooner the preservation letters go out, the better your case will be.

(470) 225-7710 — free consultation, no fee unless we recover.

See also our Macon personal injury lawyer and Warner Robins personal injury lawyer pages.

This page is provided for informational purposes and does not create an attorney-client relationship or constitute legal advice. The 2025 statutes discussed here are new and have not yet been extensively interpreted by Georgia’s appellate courts.