Negligent Security Judgment

Our client was excited for her first day of work as a cashier for a local store. She had recently gone through training and was excited to start a career. The hours she was supposed to work were from 6pm to around midnight five days a week. When she got to the job she was given a tour of the store and was shown how to lock the place up at night. Little did she know that she was being put into harm’s way.

The year before our client started working, the store had suffered many break-ins, robberies, and assaults on the property. However, the store-owner failed to warn our client of any of these criminal acts. They simply handed her the keys and told her to lock up at night. While she was working several masked men broke into the store and held her at gunpoint. Ultimately, they knocked her out with the stock of the gun. When he woke up, she had blood on her face and she couldn’t see out of one of her eyes. She immediately called the cops for help.

Unfortunately, our client lost the vision in her left eye. We filed a lawsuit against the store for negligent security and other similar actions. We ultimately had a bench trial in Jackson County, Missouri and received a verdict of a little over 2 million dollars. Our client felt empowered by the verdict because she felt like “nobody would listen.” These verdicts serve a purpose in our community because they hold companies responsible to provide a proper, safe workplace for our community members.