By Jay Wasserman
A tenant is attacked in the parking garage of a Broward apartment complex where the gate has been broken open for months. A guest is shot outside a Miami nightclub that has had three shootings in two years and no security on the sidewalk. A clerk is beaten during a robbery at a Palm Beach County gas station with a burned-out lot and cameras that were never plugged in. In each case the person who caused the injury is a criminal who is unidentified, uninsured, or already in custody with nothing to pay a judgment with. The question that decides whether the family recovers anything is whether the property owner should have seen it coming.
That is a negligent security claim. It is a species of premises liability, not a criminal case, and Florida law changed it substantially in 2023. Two statutes now sit at the center of every one of these files: Fla. Stat. § 768.0706, which lets certain apartment and condominium owners earn a presumption that they are not liable, and Fla. Stat. § 768.0701, which puts the criminal who committed the assault on the verdict form alongside the property owner. Both make these cases harder. Neither makes them impossible, and the second one is frequently misunderstood by the people it is supposed to protect.
A word of caution before anything else: the evidence in a negligent security case is owned by the defendant and it disappears on a schedule. Surveillance video is overwritten in days or weeks. Gate repair tickets, guard-post logs, incident reports, and tenant complaint emails live in systems that get purged. The police reports that establish the property’s crime history have to be pulled from multiple agencies. A written preservation demand needs to go out early, and the two-year clock under Fla. Stat. § 95.11 is running the entire time.
What a Florida negligent security claim actually requires
The theory is ordinary negligence applied to a landowner. A property owner or possessor owes invitees a duty to maintain the premises in a reasonably safe condition, and that duty extends to taking reasonable measures to protect against foreseeable criminal acts by third parties. Four elements have to line up:
- Duty. You were lawfully on the property, and the defendant controlled it. Status still matters: an invitee is owed the full duty of reasonable care, a licensee less, and a trespasser very little, with limits set by Fla. Stat. § 768.075. Control matters as much as ownership, which is why the right defendant is often the property management company, the security contractor, or the tenant operating the business, not just the title holder.
- Foreseeability. This is the fight. Florida courts look at whether the owner knew or should have known that criminal conduct of this general type was likely. Prior similar incidents on the property carry the most weight, but the totality of the circumstances matters too: crime in the immediate area, the nature of the business, the hour it operates, prior complaints from tenants or employees, and the owner’s own security assessments.
- Breach. The measures a reasonable owner would have taken given that risk, and did not: functioning locks and gates, adequate lighting, working cameras, controlled access, or in some settings staffed security. The standard is reasonableness under the circumstances, not a guarantee of safety.
- Causation. That the missing measure would have made a difference. Defense counsel argues that a determined criminal would have acted anyway, and this is where security-industry experts, crime-pattern analysis, and site design testimony do the real work.
The most valuable early document in these cases is the defendant’s own paper. Owners commission crime risk assessments, receive vendor proposals for cameras and access control, and log tenant complaints. A file showing the owner was told about the broken gate eleven times is worth more than any expert report.
The § 768.0706 presumption: what apartment owners can earn, and how it is rebutted
Fla. Stat. § 768.0706, enacted as part of the 2023 tort reform package, gives the owner or principal operator of a multifamily residential property — generally a residential building or group of buildings, such as apartments, townhouses, or condominiums, of at least five dwelling units on a parcel — a presumption against liability in a negligent security case, if the property substantially implements a specific list of security measures. Those measures include:
- A security camera system at points of entry and exit, with recordings retained for at least 30 days.
- Lighted parking lots illuminated at an average intensity of at least 1.8 foot-candles per square foot at 18 inches above the surface, from dusk until dawn or on a photocell.
- Lighting in walkways, laundry rooms, common areas, and porches at the statutory intensities.
- A deadbolt of at least one inch in each dwelling unit door.
- Locking devices on each window, exterior sliding door, and other exterior doors.
- Locked gates with key, fob, or card access along pool fence areas.
- A peephole or door viewer on each dwelling unit door that does not have a window or view panel beside it.
The statute also requires a crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) assessment of the property, conducted by a qualified practitioner or law enforcement agency and no more than three years old, along with crime deterrence and safety training for employees, provided within 60 days of hire.
Two points matter for anyone injured on a Florida apartment property. First, the presumption is rebuttable, not a shield. It shifts the starting posture of the case; it does not end it. Proof that the owner knew the property was dangerous — a documented history of violent crime, repeated tenant complaints, its own consultant’s warnings — and failed to respond reasonably can overcome it. Second, and more often decisive, is that the presumption has to be earned. Compliance is a factual question, it applies measure by measure, and in practice many properties that assert § 768.0706 in an answer cannot document a current CPTED assessment, retained camera footage, lighting readings, or completed employee training. Discovery aimed straight at the compliance file is the first move in these cases, not the last.
The Legislature considered narrowing the presumption in the 2026 session. CS/HB 1423 would have denied it to properties with a specified number of reported crimes, but it died in committee in March 2026, leaving the 2023 framework intact.
Note also what § 768.0706 does not cover. It applies to multifamily residential property. Hotels, bars and nightclubs, shopping centers, parking garages, office buildings, and gas stations are governed by ordinary premises liability principles. Convenience businesses have their own separate regime under Fla. Stat. §§ 812.173–812.174, which mandates measures such as a security camera system, a drop safe, lighted parking, unobstructed windows, cash-on-hand limits after dark, height markers at the entrance, and robbery deterrence and safety training for employees. Non-compliance with those requirements is an evidentiary asset in a case arising at a Florida gas station or convenience store.
The criminal on the verdict form: § 768.0701 and comparative fault
Before 2023, in a Florida negligent security case the jury generally apportioned fault among the property owner, the manager, the tenant business, and the plaintiff. The person who actually pulled the trigger was not on the verdict form.
Fla. Stat. § 768.0701 changed that. In an action against an owner, lessor, operator, or manager of commercial or real property brought by a person lawfully on the property who was injured by the criminal act of a third party, the trier of fact must consider the fault of all persons who contributed to the injury, including the person who committed the criminal act. It applies to claims filed on or after March 24, 2023.
The arithmetic is unforgiving. Layer this over Fla. Stat. § 768.81, which since 2023 has applied modified comparative negligence in most negligence actions: a plaintiff found more than 50 percent at fault recovers nothing, and any recovery is reduced by the plaintiff’s own share. If a jury assigns 70 percent of the fault to the assailant, 25 percent to the owner, and 5 percent to the plaintiff, the owner pays 25 percent of the damages, and the assailant’s 70 percent is generally uncollectible.
That is a real reduction in value, and it changes how these cases are built rather than whether they are worth building. The response is to make the owner’s share of the fault as large as the facts honestly support: a long history of ignored violent crime, a security system the owner knew was broken, a gate that had been inoperable for months, an assessment the owner paid for and then shelved. Juries apportion more fault to an owner who was told and did nothing than to one who was merely unlucky.
Damages proof shifted in the same reform. Under Fla. Stat. § 768.0427, evidence of past medical expenses is generally limited to amounts actually paid rather than amounts billed, with specific rules for treatment furnished under a letter of protection, including disclosure of the letter and any referral relationship. That affects how care is documented from the first month of treatment, as covered in our guide to Florida personal injury deadlines.
Deadlines, defendants, and other sources of recovery
- Two years. For causes of action accruing on or after March 24, 2023, the general negligence limitations period in Fla. Stat. § 95.11 is two years, cut down from four. Negligent security claims are negligence claims and are subject to it.
- Wrongful death. If the crime was fatal, the claim belongs to the personal representative of the estate under Florida’s Wrongful Death Act, with its own two-year period and its own list of who may recover. See our guide to wrongful death claims in Florida.
- Government-owned property. A claim involving a public housing authority, a municipal garage, a transit facility, or a public university is subject to Fla. Stat. § 768.28: a written pre-suit notice to the agency and the Department of Financial Services, a 180-day investigation period before suit, sovereign immunity caps, and a shorter notice deadline than the underlying limitations period. Missing the notice ends the case regardless of the merits.
- Every party with control. Owner, property manager, the security company under its own contract, an anchor tenant responsible for its own premises, and sometimes a parent entity. Each may carry separate insurance, and identifying them early is what makes a serious injury case collectible.
- Dram shop. Where the assault follows overservice, Fla. Stat. § 768.125 provides a narrow but real path against a vendor who knowingly served a person habitually addicted to alcohol or a person under 21.
Hypothetically: a resident of a 200-unit Palm Beach County apartment complex is robbed and badly beaten in the parking lot at 11 p.m. The complex answers the complaint by asserting the § 768.0706 presumption. Discovery produces a CPTED assessment dated four years earlier, camera footage that was retained for seven days and no longer exists, six months of work orders on a perimeter gate that never closed, and nine tenant emails about the lighting on that side of the building. The presumption is not available on those facts, and the same documents establish foreseeability, breach, and the owner’s share of the fault under § 768.0701. None of that evidence would have existed in usable form if the preservation letter had gone out a year later.
Frequently asked questions
Can I sue a property owner for a crime committed by someone else? Yes, when the crime was foreseeable and the owner failed to take reasonable security measures. Florida does not make property owners insurers of safety, so the case turns on what the owner knew about the risk — usually shown through prior similar incidents on the property — and what a reasonable owner would have done about it.
Do I have to identify or convict the attacker first? No. A negligent security claim is a civil case against the property owner and does not depend on the assailant being caught, charged, or convicted. Since 2023, the assailant’s fault is apportioned on the verdict form under § 768.0701 even when they are never identified, which reduces the owner’s share but does not bar the claim.
My apartment complex says it complies with the new security statute. Is my case over? Not on that statement alone. The § 768.0706 presumption is rebuttable, and it only applies if the property substantially implemented the required measures — cameras with 30-day retention, the specified lighting levels, deadbolts, window and door locking devices, secured pool gates, peepholes, a CPTED assessment less than three years old, and employee training. Whether all of that is true is a discovery question, and the answer is frequently no.
What if I was hurt at a hotel, a bar, a parking garage, or a gas station? Section 768.0706 does not apply to those properties. They are governed by ordinary premises liability principles, and convenience businesses have their own statutory security requirements under §§ 812.173–812.174 that can support a claim when they were not met.
How long do I have to file? Generally two years from the incident for claims accruing on or after March 24, 2023. If the property is government-owned, a pre-suit notice under § 768.28 and a 180-day waiting period apply and must be handled well before that deadline.
What should I do right now? Get medical care and keep every record. Report the incident and obtain the police report number. Write down what you remember about the lighting, gates, doors, cameras, and any security personnel, and photograph the scene if you safely can. Do not give a recorded statement to the property’s insurer. Contact counsel quickly so a written demand to preserve video and records goes out before it is overwritten.
Talk to a Florida negligent security attorney
These cases are won in the first sixty days, on video that still exists, work orders that have not been purged, and a crime history assembled from the agencies that responded. KWBR’s premises liability and personal injury practices handle negligent security claims arising from assaults, shootings, and robberies at apartment complexes, hotels, nightclubs, retail centers, and parking facilities throughout Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Orange Counties and across Florida, including wrongful death cases. If you or a family member was hurt by a crime that a property owner’s negligence made possible, contact us before the evidence is gone.
This article is for general informational purposes and is not legal advice. The example above is a hypothetical illustration, not a real case. Negligent security claims turn on the specific property, its crime history, and the dates in your file; consult a qualified Florida attorney about your situation.