A woman parks her car in a hotel parking garage after a late flight. The garage is dim, the stairwell door doesn’t latch, and the security camera above her spot has a dead lens. As she walks toward the elevator, a man who entered through the unlocked stairwell attacks her. The hotel knew about the camera outage for weeks and had received complaints about the broken door. Under premises liability law, the hotel may be on the hook for her injuries because it failed to provide adequate security.
Premises liability holds property owners and occupiers responsible for harm that happens on their land when they knew or should have known about a dangerous condition and did nothing reasonable to fix it. In the context of poor security causing injury, the key question is whether the property owner acted reasonably to protect people from foreseeable criminal acts by third parties. Parking garages, especially at hotels, are high-risk environments. They are open to the public, often isolated, and used at all hours. Criminals target them because they offer quick escape routes and limited visibility. A hotel that ignores this reality is asking for a lawsuit.
Courts look at several factors to decide if a hotel was negligent in its security. The first is foreseeability. Was a crime like the one that occurred reasonably predictable? If that same parking garage had a history of car break-ins, robberies, or assaults, the hotel had clear notice that trouble was brewing. Even without a direct history, the general nature of the location can create foreseeability. A garage in a high-crime neighborhood, or one with known design flaws like blind corners and dark stairwells, puts the owner on notice. When a property owner knows about a risk but does nothing to address it, liability attaches quickly.
The second factor is the owner’s response. Reasonable security measures vary depending on the circumstances. A well-lit garage with functioning cameras, secure stairwell doors, regular patrols, and emergency call boxes might be enough. The problem arises when the hotel cuts corners. It installs cameras but never checks if they work. It locks the stairwell doors, but the latches are broken. It has a security guard who sits in the lobby and never walks the garage. These half-measures can be worse than no measures at all because they give guests a false sense of safety. If a hotel undertakes to provide security but does it negligently—for example, by placing a camera in a spot that is always blocked by a pillar—it can still be sued.
Another critical issue is the condition of the premises at the exact moment of injury. Even if a hotel has perfect security procedures on paper, a broken gate or a burned-out light at the time of the incident can create liability. In many states, property owners have a duty to inspect and maintain their security equipment. If a camera has been down for three days and the hotel’s maintenance log shows no one bothered to fix it, that is strong evidence of negligence. Similarly, if multiple guests reported the broken stairwell door and management ignored those reports, a jury will see that as willful disregard.
Plaintiffs in these cases must also prove causation: the poor security directly led to the injury. This can be tricky because the criminal is the primary wrongdoer. But the law allows recovery against a property owner if the lack of adequate security substantially increased the risk of harm. For example, if a functioning camera would have deterred the attacker or led to a faster police response, the hotel’s failure contributed to the outcome. Expert witnesses often testify about industry standards for hotel garage security. If a hotel falls below those standards—say, using old-fashioned locks when electronic card readers are the norm—the liability case gets stronger.
Defenses exist. Hotels argue that the crime was sudden and unforeseeable, or that the guest was partially at fault for, say, leaving a car door unlocked. They also claim that the criminal’s act was an independent intervening cause that breaks the chain of liability. But courts are reluctant to accept these defenses when the property owner knew about a dangerous condition and did nothing. An unlocked stairwell is not an independent cause; it is an open invitation.
Hotels that want to avoid liability should treat security not as an expense but as a core operational requirement. That means conducting regular security audits, fixing broken equipment immediately, training staff to report hazards, and designing parking facilities with clear sightlines and adequate lighting. A single lawsuit for a preventable assault can cost far more than years of proper maintenance.
For anyone injured in a hotel parking garage due to poor security, the takeaway is straightforward. Document everything. Take photos of broken cameras, burned-out lights, and unlocked doors. Get witness statements. Report the incident to the hotel in writing. And contact a lawyer who understands premises liability. The law does not require hotels to guarantee your safety, but it does require them to take reasonable steps. When they skip those steps, they should pay for the consequences.
