Fort Myers Negligent Security Lawyer
Somebody attacked you on property that belonged to a business, and that business is telling you it was nothing to do with them. We can take it from here. Call 833-370-8692 for a free consultation. You pay us nothing unless we win. Our Fort Myers personal injury lawyers have taken these cases across Lee County since 1993.
Negligent Security claims in Fort Myers
The owner will say a criminal did this, not them, and that they cannot be responsible for what a stranger chose to do. Meanwhile you are the one recovering, and nobody has told you what the lights, the cameras, the gate or the locks were supposed to be, or what had already happened at that address. Florida answers a lot of that by statute, and finding out is our job from the first call.
A large share of Lee County’s security infrastructure was rebuilt in the last few years, at speed, by a labor market that was stretched past its limit. That cuts in the claimant’s favor more often than not: whether permits were pulled and inspections passed for fencing, lighting and gate work is public information at the county, and there are contractors, invoices and dates behind it rather than a structure of unknown age. It also raises a specific question worth asking at every rebuilt property, which is what security existed before the storm that was never put back. The other local factor is turnover: witnesses and staff here leave the county within months.
Lee County negligent security claims are filed in the Twentieth Judicial Circuit at the Lee County Justice Center. Most arise at rental apartment communities and at convenience businesses, and a great deal of the county’s lighting, fencing and gate infrastructure is recent post-storm work.
What to do after a negligent security in Fort Myers
- Send a written request to preserve the video, today. To the property owner and to the management company, naming the date, the time window and the cameras you think saw it. Ask them to confirm in writing that they have preserved it. Systems at apartment complexes, stores and garages record to a loop and overwrite in days. A police request covers what the police need, which is not the same as what your claim needs, so send your own even if officers have already been there.
- Photograph the place at the same hour it happened. Lighting is the single most common failure in these cases and it cannot be judged in daylight. Go back at the same time of night, or send somebody, and photograph what is lit and what is not, the gate, the fencing, the doors and where the cameras are mounted. Photograph what each camera can actually see from where it sits, which is frequently narrower than the property will later claim.
- Write down the police report number and every name. The report number is what everything else is retrieved with later. Take the names and numbers of anybody who saw it, anybody who helped, the staff who were on and the manager who appeared afterward. Residents and employees at these properties turn over fast, and somebody who would have said the gate had been broken for a year becomes unfindable within months.
- Do not give a recorded statement to their insurer. They will call early, sound sympathetic and ask what you were doing there, what time it was and whether you had been drinking. Every one of those questions is aimed at the share of the blame rather than at helping you. You are not obliged to give a recorded statement to somebody else’s insurer, and there is no version of this where doing it early helps.
- Get treated, and say plainly what it has done to you. The physical injuries get documented because a hospital documents them. What frequently goes unrecorded is the part that lasts longest: not being able to go back, not being able to be out after dark, sleep that does not return. Say it to a doctor and let it be written down. It is part of the claim rather than something private that gets left out of it.
Where these happen in Fort Myers
A large share of what these claims are about was rebuilt in the last few years, which cuts in the claimant’s favor more often than not.
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Rental apartment communities
The largest category, and since 2023 the one with a statutory checklist attached.
- Gates and perimeter fencing rebuilt after the storm, and whether completely
- Lighting replaced at speed, and whether it reaches the level the statute names
- Cameras at entry and exit points, and whether footage is kept thirty days
- Deadbolts, window locks and peepholes on unit doors
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Post-storm rebuild work
The county-specific factor, and unusually well documented because it is recent.
- Permit and inspection history for fencing, lighting and access control
- Work done at speed by a labor market stretched past its limit
- Contractors, invoices and dates, which older properties do not have
- Security measures that were removed during the rebuild and never reinstated
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Convenience businesses
The most heavily regulated properties in this practice, and measurable against a list.
- The camera system, drop safe, entrance notice, window sightline and height markers
- Parking lot lighting at the statutory level
- The after-hours cash policy and the silent alarm
- A prior violent crime requiring a further measure within thirty days
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Seasonal and transient occupancy
A workforce and a population that turn over, which is a problem for evidence.
- Witnesses who leave the county within months
- Staff turnover at properties, so nobody remembers the complaint
- Access control that stopped working when keys and fobs were not recovered
- Records that survive people, which is why they are requested early
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Hotels, resorts and short-term rentals
A visitor economy, where the guest knows nothing about the property and cannot assess it.
- Key and fob control, and who could reach a guest floor or a unit
- Doors and locks at a property nobody routinely inspects
- What a listing or a hotel said about security and gated access
- A host, an owner, a manager and an association, who are frequently four parties
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Marinas, storage yards and working waterfront
Property that is dark, remote and full of things worth taking.
- Perimeter fencing and gates at yards holding vessels and equipment
- Lighting across large open sites, measured where people actually walk
- Camera coverage at entry points rather than pointed only at the water
- Theft and assault history at the site, which is a public record
What causes them
- Exterior doors propped, or hardware that let them close without latching
- A vehicle control gate stuck open, or an access fob system nobody maintained
- Landscaping grown over walkways and stairwells, creating blind corners along the route to a door
- Security guards advertised to residents and not actually staffed on the shift
- A guard on duty but posted somewhere other than where the post orders said
- Key and fob control that let former residents or employees keep access
What these attacks actually do
The psychological injury, which outlasts the rest
Somebody attacked where they live cannot leave the scene behind, and a large number of these clients move house, change jobs or stop going out after dark. That is a measurable loss and it is documented through treatment records rather than described in a demand letter.
Gunshot wounds
The most common catastrophic outcome in these files. A single round can require multiple surgeries, leave permanent nerve or organ damage, and produce a lifetime of consequences from an injury that took a second. Retained fragments, chronic pain and repeated reconstruction are ordinary rather than unusual.
These claims are valued on what the treating doctors say is still ahead rather than on what has been billed, which after a shooting is nearly always the larger half.
Stab and slash wounds
Frequently underestimated because the entry looks small. Tendon and nerve damage to a hand or arm can end a working life in a trade, and abdominal wounds carry surgical consequences that continue for years. Scarring is its own head of loss and it is one juries take seriously.
What Florida law requires you to prove
Some properties answer to a written list
The two statutory checklists, the numbers in them and the foreseeability test that governs everywhere else are set out on our Florida negligent security page rather than being restated in each market. The short version is that convenience businesses and residential buildings of five or more homes each have a list of required or presumption-earning measures, and a list is something a property either satisfied or did not.
You have to have been lawfully there
Fla. Stat. § 768.075 sharply limits what a property owner answers for to a trespasser, and further where somebody was impaired. Being a resident, a guest, a customer or an invited visitor is documented early rather than assumed, because it is among the first things the defense tests.
The deadline, and the share of the blame
Most claims from an attack on or after March 24, 2023 carry two years under Fla. Stat. § 95.11. Fault is divided under Fla. Stat. § 768.81, and a public body brings its own notice requirements and a cap under Fla. Stat. § 768.28.
The full statutory detail, and the parts that differ by claim type, sit on our statewide negligent security page rather than being restated in every market.
How we prove it in Lee County
The rebuild is the advantage here, because recent work leaves paperwork that a thirty-year-old property does not have.
- A written preservation request for the video, sent within days
- Permit and inspection history for post-storm fencing, lighting and gate work
- Calls for service and incident reports for the address and surrounding blocks
- The property’s incident log, resident complaints and work orders
- Security contracts, post orders and shift logs
- Photographs at the same hour of night, and light readings against the statutory level
- The crime prevention assessment where a residential property claims the presumption
- Names and numbers for witnesses, taken immediately given how fast people leave
- Key and fob control records where a hotel, resort or rental is involved
- The listing or booking record, where the property was let short-term
- Theft and incident history at marinas and storage sites, which is a public record
Take the witness names the same day. In a county with this much seasonal turnover, somebody who would have said the gate had been open for months is gone by the time anybody asks.
Who would handle your case
Being hurt in Fort Myers is hard enough without working out the legal side on your own. The trial lawyers below have handled negligent security claims across Florida since 1993, and one of them will take yours from the first call to the last check. They will tell you what your case is worth and why, and they will be straight with you about the parts that are hard.
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Richard P. Pravato Founding & Managing Attorney Board Certified in Civil Trial Law by The Florida Bar since 2004, and by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Injury cases exclusively since 1996. Full profile → -
Brett J. Yonon Senior Trial Attorney Selected to Florida Super Lawyers in 2024 and 2025. Nearly two decades in Florida courts, including a $3.5 million funeral home negligence verdict. Full profile →
What the property and its insurer will say
Every one of these files gets the same first letter, and it says two things: a criminal did this, and the property had nothing to do with it. Both are answerable.
- A criminal did this, not us
- The claim was never about the criminal. It is about whether a business that knew people were being attacked at its address did something reasonable about it, and Florida writes that duty into statute for some properties and leaves it to foreseeability for the rest. The attacker is usually named too, and is usually the party with nothing to pay with.
- You should not have been there at that hour
- Aimed at the share of blame rather than at liability, and it is answered with the crime history and with what the property knew. Residents live where they live and customers shop when they shop. Where somebody was lawfully on the property, the hour is a fact about the risk the owner was managing rather than a fault in the person managing none of it.
- The policy excludes assault and battery
- Many commercial policies do carry that exclusion or a reduced sublimit, written precisely because these claims exist. Whether it applies depends on the wording and on how the claim is framed, since a claim about a broken gate and an unlit lot is not obviously a claim arising out of an assault. It is a coverage fight, and it is a reason to ask for the whole policy rather than to take a letter at its word.
What a claim can include
Pain, suffering and loss of ordinary life
The part with no invoice behind it, including the address somebody can no longer go back to.
Medical care, past and future
Everything billed already and everything the treating doctors say is still ahead, which after a shooting or a serious beating is usually far the larger half.
Treatment for the psychological injury
Counseling and psychiatric care, past and ongoing, and the cost of what somebody had to change about their life in order to feel safe.
What we have recovered
Verified matters this firm has handled on negligent security claims. Figures are gross recoveries, before attorney fees, costs and medical liens come out of them.
A young client was shot during a violent crime at a Miami-Dade apartment complex.
Confidential settlementEvery verdict and settlement we publish, with the press coverage for the ones that were reported. No result predicts another case: every claim turns on its own facts, its own evidence and the insurance actually available.
Why Wolf & Pravato in Fort Myers
A Lee County negligent security claim is filed in the Twentieth Judicial Circuit at the Lee County Justice Center, and the firm has an office on Colonial Boulevard rather than a referral arrangement with somebody here. Where the security infrastructure was rebuilt recently, pulling the permit history and establishing what was reinstated is local work.
Richard Pravato is one of 861 lawyers Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Civil Trial law, out of a membership over 109,000. The certification is about trial experience rather than advertising spend, and it is the part of a firm’s record that an insurance company checks.
Nothing is charged for the first conversation and nothing is charged at all unless there is a recovery. If we do not think you have a claim, we would rather tell you now than a year from now.
Fort Myers negligent security questions
The complex was rebuilt after the storm. Does that help or hurt?
It usually helps, because recent work leaves a record. Whether permits were pulled and inspections passed for fencing, lighting and gates is public information at the county, and there are contractors, invoices and dates behind it. It also raises a specific question worth asking: what security existed before the storm that was never put back.
The people who saw it have already left the county.
It is the recurring problem here and it is a reason to move now rather than a reason to give up. Records outlast people: calls for service, incident logs, work orders, camera footage if it is preserved in time. Get whatever names and numbers you have written down today, and the documentary side gets requested straight away.
The police are still investigating. Should I wait?
No. The two run separately and the civil deadlines do not pause for a criminal case. More urgently, the camera footage that would show what happened, and what the lighting and access control actually were, is usually overwritten within days. A written preservation request goes out now. Nothing about it interferes with the police investigation.
Does it matter if there had been crimes there before?
It is frequently the center of the case. Prior incidents at the address and in the surrounding blocks are obtainable from police records and from the property's own reports, and they are what establishes that this was foreseeable rather than a bolt from the blue. For a convenience business, a qualifying prior crime also triggers a statutory duty to add further security within thirty days.
The questions that come up on every kind of claim, deadlines, fees, recorded statements and fault, are answered on our Florida injury claim FAQ.
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Tell us what happened
A lawyer will listen, tell you what Florida law does with those facts, and be straight with you about whether it is worth bringing. We are at 1825 Colonial Blvd, Fort Myers, FL 33907.