Totality of circumstances
In the 1980's, courts began critically examining the prior similar incidents rule and, over the next decade, the majority of American jurisdictions abandoned it in favor of a "totality of the circumstances" test. In other words, although prior similar incidents would be one factor that a court would consider in determining whether a crime was foreseeable, the court would look to other factors as well, such as the nature of the business, its surrounding locale, the lack of customary security precautions as an invitation to crime, and the experience of the particular landowner at other locations.
Property owners have been critical of the totality of the circumstances test because of their belief that it is an impossible standard, i.e., that any time a crime occurs, one can argue that the security was necessarily inadequate. What is often overlooked in the analysis, however, is that this test is not whether security was inadequate in any abstract sense, but whether the inadequacies were unreasonable and below generally accepted standards for a particular industry. Furthermore, the deficiency must have been a substantial contributing factor to the incident.
The lack of prior similar crimes does not render it impossible to take reasonable precautions to prevent crimes that most would agree were reasonably foreseeable. Crime prevention experts, for example, routinely develop proactive security plans for premises on which crime has not yet occurred, relying on all the circumstances to predict reasonably foreseeable crime and develop reasonable precautions against it. Therefore, if property owners take no such precautions, their good fortune in not having any prior crimes is not to their benefit when the first unfortunate victim brings a claim.
see also:
Foreseeability
Premises Liability Lawsuit History - Get your FREE Case EvaluationPremises Liability Lawsuit History: Crime victims sue property owners.
Special Relationships
Premises Liability Lawsuit History - Get your FREE Case EvaluationPremises Liability Lawsuit History: Crime victims sue property owners.
Premises Liability case overview
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