Can I hold a Georgia gas station liable for a robbery or shooting on its lot?

· 3 min read

Holding a fuel station accountable for a violent crime on its property is possible under Georgia law, though it depends on more than the location of the attack. The central inquiry is whether the operator failed to use ordinary care against a danger it had reason to anticipate, and whether that failure played a part in the harm.

A customer’s standing on the property

Someone who stops to buy fuel, food, or other goods is an invitee, and O.C.G.A. § 51-3-1 obligates the business to use ordinary care to keep its premises and approaches reasonably safe. Georgia recognizes that this duty can extend to protecting customers from the criminal acts of others when those acts are foreseeable. The business does not guarantee safety, so the analysis is not whether a robbery happened but whether the operator acted reasonably in light of the risks it knew or should have known about.

Showing the danger was foreseeable

Gas stations often sit on busy corridors and stay open late, which can make them targets. To pursue a negligent-security claim, an injured person generally needs evidence that violent crime in that location was reasonably foreseeable. Under Georgia CVS Pharmacy, LLC v. Carmichael (2023), foreseeability turns on the totality of the circumstances that gave the operator reason to anticipate a third-party crime; prior substantially similar incidents, like the earlier offenses examined in Sturbridge Partners, Ltd. v. Walker, remain strong evidence but are no longer strictly required. Records that can speak to foreseeability include:

  • Police call logs and incident reports tied to the address.
  • Earlier armed robberies, shootings, or assaults on or near the lot.
  • The operator’s own internal reports or prior complaints.

Where such a history exists, a jury may ask whether the station should have responded with lighting, cameras, secured cash handling, or other reasonable measures.

Connecting the lapse to the harm

Foreseeability alone is not enough. An injured customer typically must also show that a specific security shortfall helped cause the attack, meaning reasonable precautions would likely have deterred or stopped it. O.C.G.A. § 51-12-33 then spreads the fault by percentage across all who are responsible, the robber or shooter included. Any percentage placed on the injured customer lowers what they can collect, with the door closing completely at 50 percent. The claim itself has to be filed within the two years allowed by O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33.

The bottom line

A Georgia gas station can face liability for a robbery or shooting on its lot when it ignored a foreseeable risk and skimped on reasonable security that would have mattered. The viability of such a claim hinges on the crime history of the site, the precautions a careful operator would have used, and how Georgia apportions fault among the business and the offender.

This article is for general educational and informational purposes only and is not legal advice. It does not create an attorney-client relationship, and Georgia law may change. For advice about a specific situation, consult a licensed Georgia personal injury attorney.

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