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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
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    9

    Angry Who is Responsible for Vandalism on in a Parking Lot

    My question involves insurance law for the state of: pa
    Last night there was a mass tire slashing in my complex. This is not the first time this has happened, but it is the first time my tires were slashed. I heard a noise last night that sound like a turbo blow off on a semi, and questioned my boyfriend what it was. He went outside to look but it was too dark to really see much. The street and security lights have been out for months. This morning there was a police officer at my door to notify me that my cars tires were slashed. Is the property responsiable for the damages?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2011
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    OH10
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    17,019

    Default Re: Vandisilm on Personal Property

    Nope. I suggest you move though, as soon as your lease is up.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Vandisilm on Personal Property

    Generally no - the person who DID the damage is responsible for the damages. Failing knowing who that person is, it's time to make a claim with your insurance company.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
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    9

    Default Re: Vandisilm on Personal Property

    Quote Quoting aardvarc
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    Generally no - the person who DID the damage is responsible for the damages. Failing knowing who that person is, it's time to make a claim with your insurance company.
    That is what i thought but the office said to take it up with the property manager because of neglience of not trying to fix the situation before when it happened. Ie not providing security at night, and not having proper lighting. Is this true?

  5. #5

    Default Re: Vandisilm on Personal Property

    Not at all. Unless those services are included in your lease, you're not entitled to them. If you want security, then get together with other tenants, ask management for those additional services, and prepare to write a check to cover the cost or to have your rent go WAY up upon renewal.

    When talking about lighting, are you addressing lights that exist yet are broken, and have remained broken AFTER management was notified? If so, and you want to hire an attorney and sue, with the burden of proving that the lighting issue contributed to the damages, you can certainly do so - hoping to get awarded a portion of repair expenses, (because the ACTUAL perpetrator will also bear responsiblity). You might win enough in damages to cover most of the attorney fees.

    If the lighting discussion is on "proper" lighting, that's subjective. Who is to say what's "proper"? Got the money to hire an expert witness to that end? Did the lighting situation change since you signed your lease?

    Bottom line is that unless there are some serious extinuating circumstances, AND you're prepared to bring a lawsuit for only a small POSSIBILITY that the complex may have a SMALL level of liability, it's a loosing proposition. Again, the person who CAUSED the damage is at fault, and has liability.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
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    Default Re: Vandisilm on Personal Property

    You can always try their insurer, but actually proving negligence on their part is going to be very hard in court. First, the complex has no duty to you to provide *ANY* level of security for parked cars in almost all cases. If you had a locked common garage, you might be entitled to expect such, but an open lot is pretty much nothing. Second, you'd have to show their lack of lighting or other security is a foreseeable cause of the vandalism. You think a few floodlights is going to stop a tire slasher?

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
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    Default Re: Vandisilm on Personal Property

    The law in Pennsylvania was summarized in the following case. (I don't see that the law has changed appreciably since that time but you should always check for more recent judicial opinions.)
    Quote Quoting Feld v. 506 Pa. 383, 485 A.2d 742 (1984)
    The threshold question is whether a landlord has any duty to protect tenants from the foreseeable criminal acts of third persons, and if so, under what circumstances. Well settled law holds landlords to a duty to protect tenants from injury rising out of their negligent failure to maintain their premises in a safe condition. See Smith v. M.P.W. Realty Co. Inc., 423 Pa. 536, 225 A.2d 227 (1967). Lopez v. Gukenback, 391 Pa. 359, 137 A.2d 771 (1958). That rule of law is addressed to their failure of reasonable care, a failure of care caused by their own negligence, a condition, the cause of which was either known or knowable by reasonable precaution. The criminal acts of a third person belong to a different category and can bear no analogy to the unfixed radiator, unlighted steps, falling ceiling, or the other myriad possibilities of one's personal negligence. To render one liable for the deliberate criminal acts of unknown third persons can only be a judicial rule for given limited circumstances....

    Absent therefore an agreement wherein the landlord offers or voluntarily proffers a program, we find no general duty of a landlord to protect tenants against criminal intrusion. However, a landlord may, as indicated, incur a duty voluntarily or by specific agreement if to attract or 394*394 keep tenants he provides a program of security. A program of security is not the usual and normal precautions that a reasonable home owner would employ to protect his property. It is, as in the case before us, an extra precaution, such as personnel specifically charged to patrol and protect the premises. Personnel charged with such protection may be expected to perform their duties with the usual reasonable care required under standard tort law for ordinary negligence. When a landlord by agreement or voluntarily offers a program to protect the premises, he must perform the task in a reasonable manner and where a harm follows a reasonable expectation of that harm, he is liable. The duty is one of reasonable care under the circumstances. It is not the duty of an insurer and a landlord is not liable unless his failure is the proximate cause of the harm.

    A tenant may rely upon a program of protection only within the reasonable expectations of the program. He cannot expect that a landlord will defeat all the designs of felonry. He can expect, however, that the program will be reasonably pursued and not fail due to its negligent exercise. If a landlord offers protection during certain periods of the day or night a tenant can only expect reasonable protection during the periods offered. If, however, during the periods offered, the protection fails by a lack of reasonable care, and that lack is the proximate cause of the injury, the landlord can be held liable. A tenant may not expect more than is offered. If, for instance, one guard is offered, he cannot expect the same quality and type of protection that two guards would have provided, nor may he expect the benefits that a different program might have provided. He can only expect the benefits reasonably expected of the program as offered and that that program will be conducted with reasonable care.
    Liability would thus appear to turn on the extent to which you reasonably relied upon the lighting to deter crime and whether you can show a causal connection between the landlord's failure to maintain the lighting and the occurrence of the crime under discussion. That does not sound like an easy case to make in court, but if the landlord is willing to voluntarily take responsibility you won't need to do so.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
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    16,474

    Default Re: Vandisilm on Personal Property

    Quote Quoting Mr. Knowitall
    View Post
    The law in Pennsylvania was summarized in the following case. (I don't see that the law has changed appreciably since that time but you should always check for more recent judicial opinions.)


    Liability would thus appear to turn on the extent to which you reasonably relied upon the lighting to deter crime and whether you can show a causal connection between the landlord's failure to maintain the lighting and the occurrence of the crime under discussion. That does not sound like an easy case to make in court, but if the landlord is willing to voluntarily take responsibility you won't need to do so.
    Actually there was a news story recently in my city where a landlord of an apartment complex is being fined a huge amount of money for not keeping the exterior lighting in decent repair as a deterant to crime. Parking lots have lighting specifically because it DOES deter crime.

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