Negligent Security and Inadequate Premises Protection in Prince George's County, MD
When a person is assaulted, robbed, or shot on property that someone else controls, the immediate question is whether the property owner did what the law required to protect the people it invited onto that property. In Maryland, the answer is frequently no, and the claim is frequently never brought—because the injured person assumes that the only responsible party is the assailant who was never caught.
The Maryland Standard
Maryland recognizes that a landlord who retains control over common areas owes tenants and their guests a duty to exercise reasonable care to eliminate conditions in those areas that the landlord knows or should know create a likelihood that third parties will commit criminal acts. The principle was established in Scott v. Watson, 278 Md. 160 (1976), and developed in later decisions including Hemmings v. Pelham Wood Limited Liability Limited Partnership, 375 Md. 522 (2003), which addressed a landlord's undertaking to provide security measures and the duty to maintain them.
Foreseeability is the center of every one of these cases. It is established through the property's own history and its surroundings—prior crimes on the premises, calls for service, tenant complaints, internal incident reports, security assessments the owner commissioned, and crime data for the immediate area. Much of that record exists in the owner's files and in police records, and much of it is never reviewed unless a lawyer obtains it.
Where the Duty Fails in Practice
The recurring failures are broken or propped exterior doors and gates, non-functioning locks, dark or unlit parking areas and breezeways, surveillance cameras that were installed but never recorded or were never monitored, courtesy patrols that were advertised to tenants and then discontinued, and the absence of any response to a documented pattern of violent incidents on the property. A landlord who advertises security and then fails to provide it faces exposure beyond the baseline duty, because tenants relied on the representation in choosing to live there.
Why JD Howlette Law?
Negligent security cases require proving what an institution knew and when it knew it, against a defendant with counsel and resources. That is the same work this firm performs in its civil rights practice, where establishing an entity's notice of a pattern and its deliberate failure to act is the core of a municipal liability claim. If your injury also involved law enforcement or occurred in a jail or detention setting, those claims are handled through our civil rights team at Justly Prudent.