Who is liable if I’m assaulted in a Georgia parking garage or deck?

· 3 min read

Liability for an assault in a Georgia parking garage or deck can rest with whoever owned or controlled the structure, alongside the attacker. The owner or operator may be responsible under negligent security principles if the assault was foreseeable and the facility lacked the reasonable security that ordinary care required.

Who controlled the facility

Parking structures often involve more than one entity, and the duty falls on whoever controlled the premises. Potentially responsible parties can include:

  • The property owner of the garage or deck.
  • A parking-management or operating company that ran and maintained the facility.
  • An adjoining business or building that owned or controlled the parking area for its patrons.

Whichever party controlled the structure owes lawful visitors ordinary care to keep it safe under O.C.G.A. § 51-3-1. Where a garage has both an owner and a separate operator, O.C.G.A. § 51-12-33 lets a jury split the blame between them and the assailant, even reaching a party left off the complaint.

Why garages draw negligent security scrutiny

Parking decks present recognized risks. They are often poorly lit, have many concealed corners and blind spots, see heavy turnover of strangers, and may be open to the public with limited oversight. These features can make a violent assault foreseeable, which is the threshold issue in any negligent security case. Georgia judges foreseeability under the totality of the circumstances, weighing prior crimes in and around the structure by their proximity, timing, frequency, and similarity, along with the location’s character and the owner’s knowledge of any developing danger.

When the risk was foreseeable, the inquiry turns to the security provided. Failures that can support a claim include inadequate lighting, broken or absent access controls, disabled or unmonitored cameras, and a lack of patrols or attendants where the risk called for them. The injured person must connect such a failure to the assault, showing reasonable security would likely have deterred or prevented it.

The owner is not an automatic insurer

A garage owner is not liable simply because an assault occurred there. Without foreseeability, no duty to guard against the specific crime arises, and even a foreseeable risk does not create liability if the owner provided reasonable security. The injured person carries the burden on foreseeability, the adequacy of security, and causation.

The same statute also weighs the injured person’s own conduct, paring the recovery by their percentage and ending it at 50%, even as the jury may lay a heavy share on the attacker.

The bottom line

When someone is assaulted in a Georgia parking garage or deck, liability can extend to the owner or operator who controlled the structure, in addition to the attacker, when the assault was foreseeable and reasonable security was lacking. Because garages carry well-known risks, foreseeability is often contested, and the case depends on the security failures shown and how Georgia apportions fault among everyone responsible.

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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