Negligent Security and Assault Claims in Michigan

When you're mugged in a dark apartment parking lot, robbed at an ATM, or attacked at a store the criminal isn't the only one who may owe you. If the property owner ignored an obvious, foreseeable danger, Michigan law may hold the business responsible too.

Negligent security is one of the most misunderstood areas of personal injury law. People assume that because a third party — a mugger, an attacker, a trespasser — did the actual harm, the property owner is off the hook. That's not always true. Businesses and landlords have real duties, and when they fail them, victims have real claims. Here's how it works in Michigan.

What Is a Negligent Security Claim?

A negligent security claim is a type of premises liability. The theory isn't that the owner attacked you — it's that the owner failed to take reasonable security measures to protect people it invited onto its property from a foreseeable criminal act. Common settings include:

• Apartment complexes with broken gates, dead lights, and a history of break-ins or assaults
• Parking lots and structures that are poorly lit and unpatrolled
• Bars, nightclubs, and concert venues with too few or untrained security staff
• Hotels and motels with broken door locks or no monitoring
• Gas stations, ATMs, and convenience stores in high-crime areas with no deterrence
• Malls, offices, and campuses that ignore known threats

The Key Question: Was the Crime Foreseeable?

Michigan law does not make a property owner the insurer of everyone's safety, and generally there is no duty to anticipate a sudden, unforeseeable criminal act by a stranger. The battleground in nearly every case is foreseeability — did the owner know, or should it have known, that this kind of crime was likely?

Foreseeability is usually proven with evidence such as:

• Prior crimes on or near the property (police call histories, incident reports)
• Complaints from tenants or customers about safety, broken locks, or dark areas
• Known broken security equipment — gates, cameras, lighting, locks left unrepaired
• The character of the location and surrounding area
• An ongoing situation the staff watched unfold and did nothing about

When a landlord knew its complex had repeated armed robberies and still let the security gate sit broken for months, that history is what turns a random-seeming crime into a foreseeable one the owner should have guarded against.

What Reasonable Security Might Have Looked Like

Once a danger is foreseeable, the question becomes whether the owner did enough. Depending on the setting, reasonable measures can include adequate lighting, working locks and gates, functioning surveillance cameras, trained security personnel, controlled access, and prompt response to known threats. We work with security experts to show what the property should have done and how it fell short.

Special Rules for Merchants and Third-Party Crime

Michigan has a specific statute, MCL 600.2955a and related premises principles, addressing a merchant's duties regarding third-party criminal acts. The law can limit a merchant's obligations — for instance, around whether a store must actively intervene in a crime in progress — but it does not erase duties tied to the physical condition of the premises and foreseeable risks. These distinctions are technical, which is exactly why an experienced eye matters.

Michigan's Open-and-Obvious Doctrine

The Michigan Supreme Court's 2023 decision in Kandil-Elsayed v. F & E Oil reshaped premises liability generally, moving the open-and-obvious analysis into the comparative fault framework rather than treating an obvious hazard as an automatic bar. For negligent security, the practical focus stays on foreseeability and the reasonableness of the owner's precautions.

Comparative Fault and the Filing Deadline

Michigan applies modified comparative negligence. Defendants often argue the victim put themselves in harm's way; if you're assigned fault, your recovery drops accordingly, and more than 50% fault bars non-economic damages. These arguments can usually be answered with the property's own crime history and failures.

The statute of limitations for these injury claims is generally three years under MCL 600.5805. But the most important evidence — surveillance video, security-guard logs, police-call records — can be gone within days. Fast action preserves the case.

What to Do After an Attack on Someone's Property — A Checklist

1. Get to safety and call 911. A police report is critical evidence.
2. Get medical care and document all injuries.
3. Report the incident to the property owner or manager and get an incident report.
4. Photograph the scene — broken locks or gates, burned-out lights, missing cameras, dark corners.
5. Get witness names and numbers.
6. Note whether cameras were present and tell a lawyer immediately so footage can be preserved.
7. Keep records of prior complaints you made about safety, if any.
8. Don't give a recorded statement to the property's insurer before consulting an attorney.

Bottom Line

Being attacked is terrifying, and it's easy to assume nothing can be done because "some criminal" did it. But in Michigan, when a business or landlord ignores a foreseeable danger and skips the basic security that would have protected you, the law can hold that owner accountable alongside the attacker. If you were assaulted on someone else's property, let a lawyer look at the crime history and the security failures before the evidence disappears.

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