Landlord’s Duty To Prevent Assaults

If you were assaulted by a third party in your apartment building, you of course can sue the perpetrator, but the landlord may also be liable to you to compensate for your injuries and pain and suffering.  Landlords have a duty to take minimal precautions to protect tenants from the reasonably foreseeable criminal conduct of third parties and are liable to an injured tenant if the landlord’s conduct caused the assault.  The important factors in most cases like this are whether the assault was foreseeable and whether the landlord took reasonable steps to prevent that foreseeable assault from occurring.  For example, in a building lobby where assaults have occurred prior to your incident, the landlord may be liable to you if the landlord failed to put proper security in place.  For instance, broken door locks, unsecured windows, and the like.  If you were assaulted in your apartment building, contact us immediately.  We can investigate whether there have been similar incidents to yours and we can physically inspect the area where the assault took place to determine if your landlord took the proper steps to prevent intruders from assaulting tenants.