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Security businesses are the direct beneficiary of a property owner's obligation to provide adequate security and protection. The topic can include injury to those entering upon the premises, for example slip and fall incidents or defective conditions causing injury, to protecting those on the premises from third party criminal activity. Security companies should be knowledgeable about owner's obligations because often the Security company is called upon to recommend adequate security, and in any event should be able to inform owner's who are potential subscribers about their obligations to generate security services.
The alarm industry deals with intrusion and fire, access control and cctv coverage. As technology evolves so does the definition of what constitutes adequate security protection. One day we may find that supervised access control or central station video monitoring of CCTV systems is considered minimal protective services. Certainly fire protection is now extensively regulated and undeniably a property owner's obligation.
A recent artical published in the Florida Bar Journal [that's a publication for Florida lawyers] reviews Florida's law on premises liability. The author is Wilton Strickland, an attorney practicing in Hollywood Florida with Conroy Simberg, et al. You can read his article at http://www.floridabar.org/DIVCOM/JN/JNJournal01.nsf/8c9f13012b96736985256aa900624829/f5edda415d032b218525767e0071da90!OpenDocument
The article is somewhat technical - it's written for lawyers. It gives a good overview of the law in Florida. Other states have abandoned the approach still used in Florida and have adopted what is considered to be a simpler rule of "reasonable care under the circumstances" which will take into consideration the "reasonable expectations of the parties and society in general".
For a related article see http://www.kirschenbaumesq.com/earticle205.htm
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Related to the above is this email:
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Ken,
If you did not see this article, which involves contracts, I thought you might like to.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20091130/NEWS02/911300344/1003/NEWS02
Gary Dawkins, CEO
Response Center USA
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Gary - thanks for sending that article. I did an article on this shopping mall case - which can be read at http://www.kirschenbaumesq.com/vermont1.htm
The actual case can be read in its entirety at: