In a city with busy commercial corridors, apartment complexes, and late-night foot traffic, property owners and managers are expected to plan for risks that are foreseeable. In practice, Philadelphia negligent security disputes frequently come down to two questions:
- What the owner should have known (prior incidents, complaints, known problem areas, recurring security breakdowns).
- What was done after that knowledge (repairs, staffing changes, camera maintenance, access control fixes, staff training, or incident response).
When an assault occurs in a location with frequent pedestrian movement—such as near entrances, parking garages, delivery areas, stairwells, or building perimeters—the defense often argues the incident was random. Our job is to show why, given the circumstances and the property’s history, reasonable security steps were expected.


