I have successfully recovered settlements for clients injured because of criminal harm at a property. This includes a settlement for a woman injured during a purse snatching in the parking lot of her local drug store, which occurred while she was picking up a prescription. I recovered a settlement for a truck driver who was jumped during a delivery at a supermarket, in its delivery dock bay area. I recovered for a maintenance person shot by a man wielding an Uzi from an adjacent property, while he was walking down a public street. I recovered a settlement for a young man injured while asking a drug dealer for a refund at an organic supermarket for damages suffered by him when he was stabbed by the drug dealer in the neck and required life saving surgery. I recovered for a woman improperly removed from a bar after the bouncers broke her ankle during their use of force. I recovered a settlement for a man injured when a bouncer knocked him out in an altercation outside the bar. I recovered a settlement for a man who was assaulted by a bartender in a bar, and in several other instances where force was unreasonably or recklessly used by so-called security personnel. I have written about these types of cases in an article published by the Pennsylvania Bar Association, though its Law Review, the Pennsylvania Bar Quarterly, Bugay, Civil Prosecution for Criminal Harm: Apportionment of Fault in Inadequate Security Cases, 74 Pa.B.A.Q. 93 (July 2003). What I stated then, over twenty years ago, remains true today, “Unfortunately, crime victims are often overlooked by our legal system. . . . Victims are given small comfort by a perpetrator’s sentence and punishment [and] are, instead, left alone to try to put their lives back together. Often, the most aggravating circumstances surrounding these criminal matters is how businesses, often large companies, ignore repeated warning signs of attack and permit their patrons to become victims of crime because they were never given proper protection.”
Many of these cases involve negligently secured guns or weapons that are negligently entrusted to incompetent people. Many years ago, I wrote a friend of the court (“Amicus Curiae”) brief in the Donegal Mutual Ins. Co. v. Baumhammers, 938 A.2d 286 (Pa. 2007), which involved multiple shootings by Richard Baumhammers who shot and killed six people during a psychotic episode using a gun that he should never have had possession of at any time, because of his mental state. The case involved an insurance dispute; but the liability was premised upon the negligent entrustment of a gun to someone who should never have had any access to such a weapon.
People are injured by incompetent people with guns when these weapons are not properly secured. In a recent case, a couple were shot by their neighbor’s son, who negligently had access to an AK-47 and other military style weapons because their owner, who had showed him how to use and fire these weapons, had negligently permitted the shooter access to the weapons. They were not properly secured by the gun/weapon’s owner. In fact, the owner had stored them at work, where he and the shooter were mechanics, where they were kept, in an unsecured state, behind the owner’s work uniform. The shooter was apprehended and jailed because of a prior shooting, which occurred the day before my clients’ shooting, and was imprisoned in a Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution. The shooter had no assets or financial resources. In fact, the weapons’ owner also did not have homeowners’ insurance that would have potentially covered the damage caused. Moreover, the shooter’s mother did not have insurance or assets to cover the damages caused by the shooting. However, the employer’s commercial policy ultimately provided coverage for the damages caused by the shooting.
I wrote about the liability claims from this and other gun matters in an article published by the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Law Review, the Pennsylvania Bar Quarterly, Bugay, Pennsylvania Civil Liability for Negligent Gun Storage, 86 Pa. B. A. Q. 152 (October 2015).
If you or someone you know has been injured by a gun or in a criminal act, you may have civil claims that will provide financial compensation beyond the criminal justice system, despite whatever restitution is provided in a criminal process.
In other matters, people are injured because of theft or embezzlement. I represent people who have suffered harm in such matters. In these cases, Pennsylvania Statutes, within the Commercial Code, through an area of law known as “Negotiable Instruments” may provide additional protection and remedies for such victims through the CIVIL justice system. If you or someone you know is a victim of such crime, call us, we can help.
