Car vandalized in apartment parking lot. Cameras didn't pick up anything, again.

[Copenhagen23]

Hartford, Connecticut

Woke up this morning to my wife's car being on cinder blocks. They stole the wheels and damaged the underside of the car. I will have to pay my deductible, tow fee, rental, and missed pay.

There are cameras in the parking lot but they do not cover the area tight to the building where the car is parked, so the thieves were not caught on camera. My car was broken into in the same parking lot but in a different spot farther from the building last month. Again the cameras didn't pick up anything. Last year my wifes car was hit in the parking lot, and cameras didn't pick up anything either.

My lease agreement says they are not liable for any damage unless caused by negligence of the Lessor. Can I prove negligence in this instance? Whoever vandalized our vehicles seems to be aware the cameras don't cover those particular locations. We pay $45 a month for each car for parking in a safe place. They have said previously they are aware the cameras don't cover the entire parking lot, and they were going to address it, but obviously not have not. Do I have a case?

 

[justalayman]

Not having a camera pointed where your car is not negligence unless they have a duty to have a camera pointed where you park your car. They don’t so this is not negligence.

So maybe you should make an effort to park your car where you know there is camera coverage

 

[Copenhagen23]

Not having a camera pointed where your car is not negligence unless they have a duty to have a camera pointed where you park your car. They don’t so this is not negligence.

So maybe you should make an effort to park your car where you know there is camera coverage

Thanks for the snarky reply. I made an effort to park my car in a spot where the car wouldn't get damaged or vandalized by other tenants, and since it's close to the building, I thought it would be safe. They have a duty to protect paying tenants in their parking lot when security is one of the reasons people would even consider moving into a city apartment. You're telling me to not park in the 5 or 6 spots with no camera coverage so this doesn't happen? Might as well tell me don't live in an apartment, or don't have a car so this doesn't happen. That's what I get from a free advice forum.

 

[justalayman]

It wasn’t snarky. It was blunt. If you know certain areas of the lot aren’t visible on camera, especially given the amount of problems you have had, one would think one would make a special effort to park where it is within view of a camera

No they don’t have a duty to protect tenant vehicles. That’s where you are mistaken. You rent an apartment from them, not a security service.

 

[FarmerJ]

As you now know cameras do not mean squat. How many more months left to your lease ? I suggest you begin to look for a new place to live ( and locking lug nuts for ALL of your families cars ) As to any obligation landlord has regarding security issues , its all spelled out in your lease .

 

[HRZ]

I disagree , if you can prove management was aware of dead spots in their security coverage then failure to address them on a prompt fashion might just be negligence .

 

[justalayman]

I disagree , if you can prove management was aware of dead spots in their security coverage then failure to address them on a prompt fashion might just be negligence .

Negligence only applies if they had a duty to provide camera coverage. I strongly suspect their is no duty

 

[HRZ]

If they advertise and rent secure parking under 24 hr surveillance it may be a different story ...if that is .

 

[justalayman]

If they advertise and rent secure parking under 24 hr surveillance it may be a different story ...if that is .

It’s under 24 hour surveillance. It is not realistic to suggest that every square inch if the lot would be monitored constantly and I doubt a court would suggest otherwise.

Obviously if it is advertised as being monitored 24/7 the level of monitoring would be scrutinized to some degree butmwe all know the only way to ensure with 100% certainty nobody will screw with your car is to live in it.

24 hour surveillance also doesn’t necessarily mean cameras or cameras that are connected to a recording device.




Additionally if the op was aware of unsurveiled spots, he failed to act to avoid those areas. If one knows of a deficency and doesn’t act to avoid it, care to guess is responsible for their own actions?

 

[Eekamouse]

Thanks for the snarky reply. I made an effort to park my car in a spot where the car wouldn't get damaged or vandalized by other tenants, and since it's close to the building, I thought it would be safe. They have a duty to protect paying tenants in their parking lot when security is one of the reasons people would even consider moving into a city apartment. You're telling me to not park in the 5 or 6 spots with no camera coverage so this doesn't happen? Might as well tell me don't live in an apartment, or don't have a car so this doesn't happen. That's what I get from a free advice forum.

Well, yeah.

Additionally, I've never heard common sense and snarky being confused with each other before.

 

[Taxing Matters]

Not having a camera pointed where your car is not negligence unless they have a duty to have a camera pointed where you park your car. They don’t so this is not negligence.

The landlord might not have that duty, but I wouldn't flatly rule it out. Where the landlord is on notice that there are security problems in the parking lot it may well be that the landlord has the duty to take reasonable measures to deal with those known problems. Had this been the first time there was a problem and assuming that the neighborhood in general was not known for such problems I'd have little trouble saying the landlord has no duty to provide security cameras. But there has been a history of problems here, and that may change things. Consider the following statement by a Connecticut court:

The landlord is no insurer of his tenants' safety, but he certainly is no bystander. And where, as here, the landlord has notice of repeated criminal assaults and robberies, has notice that these crimes occurred in the portion of the premises exclusively within his control, has every reason to expect like crimes to happen again, and has the exclusive power to take preventive action, it does not seem unfair to place upon the landlord a duty to take those steps which are within his power to minimize the predictable risk to his tenants.​

​

In the case at bar we place the duty of taking protective measures guarding the entire premises and the areas peculiarly under the landlord's control against the perpetration of criminal acts upon the landlord, the party to the lease contract who has the effective capacity to perform these necessary acts....​

​

We have heretofore made clear as to apartment houses, the reasons which underlie the landlord's duty under modern conditions and which, as to various hazards, call for at least “reasonable or ordinary care, which means reasonably safe conduct, but there is no sufficient reason for requiring less.” True, the landlord does not become a guarantor of the safety of his tenant. But, if he knows, or in the exercise of ordinary care ought to know, of a possibly dangerous situation and fails to take such steps as an ordinarily prudent person, in view of existing circumstances, would have exercised to avoid injury to his tenant, he may be liable.​

Kargul v. Sandpiper Dunes Ltd. P'ship, No. 50 56 00, 1991 WL 28051, at *7–8 (Conn. Super. Ct. Jan. 29, 1991). Given this standard, I would not rule out that jury might indeed conclude that there is some liability on the part of the landlord in this instance.

 

[justalayman]

The landlord might not have that duty, but I wouldn't flatly rule it out. Where the landlord is on notice that there are security problems in the parking lot it may well be that the landlord has the duty to take reasonable measures to deal with those known problems. Had this been the first time there was a problem and assuming that the neighborhood in general was not known for such problems I'd have little trouble saying the landlord has no duty to provide security cameras. But there has been a history of problems here, and that may change things. Consider the following statement by a Connecticut court:

The landlord is no insurer of his tenants' safety, but he certainly is no bystander. And where, as here, the landlord has notice of repeated criminal assaults and robberies, has notice that these crimes occurred in the portion of the premises exclusively within his control, has every reason to expect like crimes to happen again, and has the exclusive power to take preventive action, it does not seem unfair to place upon the landlord a duty to take those steps which are within his power to minimize the predictable risk to his tenants.​

​

In the case at bar we place the duty of taking protective measures guarding the entire premises and the areas peculiarly under the landlord's control against the perpetration of criminal acts upon the landlord, the party to the lease contract who has the effective capacity to perform these necessary acts....​

​

We have heretofore made clear as to apartment houses, the reasons which underlie the landlord's duty under modern conditions and which, as to various hazards, call for at least “reasonable or ordinary care, which means reasonably safe conduct, but there is no sufficient reason for requiring less.” True, the landlord does not become a guarantor of the safety of his tenant. But, if he knows, or in the exercise of ordinary care ought to know, of a possibly dangerous situation and fails to take such steps as an ordinarily prudent person, in view of existing circumstances, would have exercised to avoid injury to his tenant, he may be liable.​

Kargul v. Sandpiper Dunes Ltd. P'ship, No. 50 56 00, 1991 WL 28051, at *7–8 (Conn. Super. Ct. Jan. 29, 1991). Given this standard, I would not rule out that jury might indeed conclude that there is some liability on the part of the landlord in this instance.

I would consider a camera surveillance system, even if it allows for blind spots, to be reasonable and prudent. I happen to work where you are on camera almost 100% of the time but as I walk into the security entrance building, I can see probably 20 cameras (there are hundreds of cameras onsite. Those 20 or so are only for the main entrance for personnel and a traffic sally port) and,those are the cameras that are visible. Even with that there are blind spots. It is unrealistic to suggest the landlord maintain surveillance on absolutely every area of the complex. That would rise to the level of extraordinary care.

 

[quincy]

I would consider a camera surveillance system, even if it allows for blind spots, to be reasonable and prudent. I happen to work where you are on camera almost 100% of the time but as I walk into the security entrance building, I can see probably 20 cameras (there are hundreds of cameras onsite. Those 20 or so are only for the main entrance for personnel and a traffic sally port) and,those are the cameras that are visible. Even with that there are blind spots. It is unrealistic to suggest the landlord maintain surveillance on absolutely every area of the complex. That would rise to the level of extraordinary care.

Video surveillance is not the only precaution a landlord can take to better secure premises or parking lots.

If apartment owners advertise their properties, emphasizing security as an asset (and charging extra for this asset), they can be held liable if their security features are not as advertised (or fail).

 

[Taxing Matters]

I would consider a camera surveillance system, even if it allows for blind spots, to be reasonable and prudent. I happen to work where you are on camera almost 100% of the time but as I walk into the security entrance building, I can see probably 20 cameras (there are hundreds of cameras onsite. Those 20 or so are only for the main entrance for personnel and a traffic sally port) and,those are the cameras that are visible. Even with that there are blind spots. It is unrealistic to suggest the landlord maintain surveillance on absolutely every area of the complex. That would rise to the level of extraordinary care.

We don't have all the facts, of course. We don't know what areas the cameras actually cover — while not every inch may need to be covered, it may be that the landlord could reasonably have cameras set up to cover more than is covered now, including the area where the OP's wife's car was located. I wonder how an area of the lot in which an entire car got put up on cinder blocks would not have been covered. In many parking lots it would not be difficult to ensure each parking spot was able to be covered, but again I don't know the configuration of the lot. And, as quincy points out, the cameras are not necessarily the only thing the landlord might have done. There is a lot more I would want to know before deciding whether the landlord's efforts here were reasonable. It would be up to the jury to decide if the landlord's efforts were reasonable given the history of problems at this place. So again, I wouldn't rule out the potential for liability by the landlord in this instance.

 

[justalayman]

We don't have all the facts, of course. We don't know what areas the cameras actually cover — while not every inch may need to be covered, it may be that the landlord could reasonably have cameras set up to cover more than is covered now, including the area where the OP's wife's car was located. I wonder how an area of the lot in which an entire car got put up on cinder blocks would not have been covered. In many parking lots it would not be difficult to ensure each parking spot was able to be covered, but again I don't know the configuration of the lot. And, as quincy points out, the cameras are not necessarily the only thing the landlord might have done. There is a lot more I would want to know before deciding whether the landlord's efforts here were reasonable. It would be up to the jury to decide if the landlord's efforts were reasonable given the history of problems at this place. So again, I wouldn't rule out the potential for liability by the landlord in this instance.

Have you ever designed and installed a video surveillance system? To obtain useable footage of a modest sized lot where it is totally covered is not as easy as it sounds. Unless you use a manned system with ptz (cameras that can pan back and forth, tilt up and down, and zoom in), it takes a lot more than many think. It’s easy to have a camera cover a football field but to have that camera provide useable detail of what is viewed is very expensive. It isn’t found in surveillance system type cameras. If the recording is to provide enough detail, such as a license plate number or a recognizable image of a persons face, you would have a lot of cameras to cover that football field.


Of course if the court will accept a crappy recording of the entire lot that doesn’t provide much more info than no camera, I can do that pretty easy and relatively cheap.

And as I said before, if the op is aware 5 or 6 spots aren’t covered, it would be reasonable and prudent to avoid those 5 or 6 spaces if at all possible. I would suggest gross negligence on the part of the op won’t serve him well if this went to court.