Tampa negligent security lawyer

Which Florida laws apply to a Tampa negligent security claim

The rules are the same across Florida, so they are written out in full on one page rather than repeated here. They are explained on the statewide negligent security page, with the statute text linked.

A negligent security claim says the property owner should have foreseen the crime and did not take reasonable measures against it. Since 2023, Fla. Stat. § 768.0706 gives the owner of a multifamily residential property of five or more dwelling units a presumption against liability — but only if it proves it substantially implemented nine specific things, and § 768.0706(3) puts that burden on the owner.

The statute reaches no further than that. A garage, a hotel, a store, a bar, an office park or a parking lot is governed by ordinary premises liability with no presumption at all. Fault is apportioned under § 768.81, and the deadline is two years.

What follows is the part that is specific to Hillsborough County — where these claims arise, where you will be treated, which courthouse the case goes to, and how the records are obtained.

Does the 2023 statute cover the property where you were hurt?

This is the first question, and it splits Tampa negligent security claims into two completely different cases.

If it was multifamily residential with at least five dwelling units on the parcel — an apartment complex, a townhouse community, a condominium — then § 768.0706 is in play. The owner may claim a presumption against liability for a third party’s criminal act. It is not automatic: under § 768.0706(3) the owner carries the burden of proving it substantially implemented the measures, and there are nine of them.

If it was anything else, the statute does not apply. A parking garage, a hotel, a store, a restaurant, a bar, a gas station, an office park, a shopping center — none of them are multifamily residential property. There is no presumption, no checklist, and the case proceeds on ordinary premises liability: whether the owner knew or should have known of the risk, and whether what it did about it was reasonable.

Note also § 768.0706(5): the statute does not create a cause of action. The claim itself still comes from common-law negligence. The statute only changes what an owner of one kind of property can argue in defense of it.

So read the parcel before reading the statute. Five units is the line, counted on the parcel the property appraiser assigned a number to — which means two small buildings under one parcel number can cross it while a four-unit building never does.

What an owner has to prove to earn the presumption

Section 768.0706(2) lists seven physical measures and two administrative ones. The owner must have substantially implemented all of it, and every item is checkable.

A security camera system at points of entry and exit, retaining footage retrievable for at least 30 days. Parking lot lighting averaging at least 1.8 foot-candles per square foot, measured 18 inches above the surface, from dusk until dawn or on a photocell. Lighting in walkways, laundry rooms, common areas and porches on the same schedule. A deadbolt of at least one inch on each dwelling unit door. Locking devices on each window, each exterior sliding door and other exterior non-community doors. Locked gates with key or fob access along pool fence areas. A peephole or door viewer on each unit door without an adjacent window.

Then the two that are most often missing. Subsection (2)(b) requires a crime prevention through environmental design assessment — a CPTED assessment — no more than three years old. Subsection (2)(c) requires crime deterrence and safety training for employees, within 60 days of hire for anyone hired after the compliance date.

This is a documentary fight, and it favors the person asking the questions. Whether the footage was genuinely retrievable for thirty days. Whether the lighting genuinely averaged 1.8 foot-candles at 18 inches. Whether a current CPTED assessment exists. Whether training records exist. An owner that cannot produce them does not get the presumption.

How the call history for a Tampa address is obtained

Foreseeability is built from what happened at that address before, and that record belongs to whichever agency actually patrols it.

In Hillsborough the line is the city boundary, and both agencies say so themselves. The Tampa Police Department lists "Address Search / Calls for Service — a search of a specific address" as one of its request types, and tells you to check the boundary map first to verify the address is within the limits of the City of Tampa. The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office puts it from the other direction: while the City of Tampa sits inside Hillsborough County, its patrol units do not respond to activity within the city.

Get the jurisdiction wrong and the answer comes back empty — not because nothing happened there, but because you asked an agency that never responded to it. That is why the city line matters before the request goes out.

What to ask for: the calls for service to the specific address, a radius around it, and a date range running back several years. Prior incidents of the same character carry the most weight, but a pattern of any violent crime at an address is the substance of the argument.

And ask the owner, too. Management companies keep incident reports, tenant complaints and work orders that never generated a police call. A maintenance ticket for a broken gate, dated months before, is often the strongest single document in the case.

The evidence that disappears first, and what to do this week

Nearly everything that decides one of these cases is perishable, and most of it is controlled by the party you would be making a claim against.

Camera footage. Thirty days is the retention floor the statute sets for covered properties, and plenty of systems hold far less. A written demand to preserve, naming the date, the time window and the cameras, has to go out immediately — and it is also the request that establishes whether the system was working at all.

The lighting, before it changes. A foot-candle reading taken after the owner relamps proves nothing about the night in question. Photographs that night, and a measured reading as early as possible, are the only way that condition survives.

The gate, the locks, the doors. Broken access control gets repaired quickly once a claim appears. Photograph it, and get the repair history.

Your own medical records from the first days, which are what proves the injury months later regardless of how the liability argument turns out.

Where the Tampa office is, and how to get there

DAPENALAW is at 4231 N Habana Avenue, Tampa, FL 33607, open Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 18:00. The direct number is (813) 930-5422.

The office is on North Habana Avenue in West Tampa, a few minutes from I-275 and from Tampa General, with parking on site. A first conversation can happen by phone or video from anywhere in the county, and home and hospital visits are available when someone cannot travel.

You do not have to come in. The first conversation can be by phone or video, documents are handled electronically, and where an injury makes travel difficult the meeting happens where you are. The Habana Avenue office serves Hillsborough County generally, and most often Tampa, Westshore, Town ’n’ Country, Ybor City, Temple Terrace, Carrollwood, Brandon, Riverview and Plant City.

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